Henry Shawah

SHAWAH, Henry Goldsmith and sculptor, resident of Cambridge, MA, and Tucson, AZ, died at his home in Cambridge on June 29. He was 88 years old. A goldsmith who practiced well into his eighties, Shawah was the first American to have a one-man exhibition at Goldsmiths' Hall in London. In 1981 he was the only American inducted as an Associate of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, a title at that time granted to only forty goldsmiths worldwide. Shawah's jewelry and sculpture have been exhibited, among other places, at Georg Jensen in New York, the 1964 World's Fair, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and at the White House during the millennium celebration. Just this spring Shawah published a monograph on his work, "Henry Shawah: Goldsmith & Sculptor" (Hudson Hills Press). In the foreword to that book, Agnes Gund, president emerita of the Museum of Modern Art and a long-time friend, calls Henry "a national treasure." Henry Shawah was born in Danbury, CT, son of Mary and John A. Shawah. He served in the United States Navy on a PT boat in the South Pacific. At the end of WW II, he enrolled at Pratt Institute, where he earned a certificate in interior design. After a stint designing ship interiors for a Boston firm, Shawah enrolled at Boston University and graduated with a BS in art education. Around 1950 he received a free copy of "How To Make Jewelry", published by MoMA in 1949, and was immediately taken with the notion "of making miniature sculpture called jewelry." He went on to get an MFA from Columbia University in 1957 and from there moved to Cambridge and set up a goldsmith shop at 14B Eliot Street, just off Harvard Square. Since the mid-1970s, Shawah worked on private commissions from his home studio in Cambridge and was active as a trustee of the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts, the oldest craft society in the country. In the 1980s he led an organized community effort to save a portion of Porter Square heritage from wrecking crews, and all of his life he was a proud preserver of his own Arab-American heritage. Henry Shawah is survived by his loving sister and brother-in-law, Ann and John G. Betar of Fairfield, CT, and by his sister-in-law, Ann Shawah of Bridgeport, CT. He will always be the much-adored "Uncle Hank" to three generations of nieces and nephews living throughout the country. A private memorial service will take place at St. Nicholas Antiochian Church in Bridgeport, CT. In Cambridge, an open house to celebrate Henry's life will be held at his home studio on Sunday, July 19 from noon-3 p.m.