NATANYA VAN NIEKERK ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

After 27 years of experience in the coin and bullion industry, Natanya Van Niekerk has left her distinctive artistic mark on both legal tender coins and investment bullion pieces. She has experienced the inner workings of our industry at the national mint, private mint and refinery levels. The constant in each of those channels was that Van Niekerk pursued a holistic approach to precious metal design, combining politics, environment and art.

This approach guided Van Niekerk in the creation of almost 20 award-winning coin designs, from 1996 to 2013, including nine Mint Directors Conference (MDC) awards and three Coin of the Year (COTY) category awards, two of which went on to win the overall COTY in the 1999 and 2011 competitions. But this recognition did not appear overnight, as Van Niekerk reminded us in her acceptance speech for the 2021 COTY Lifetime Achievement Award in Coin Design, her career has been a process.

"My training in fine arts did not prepare me for the miniature world of coin art and engraving, but it did give me a sense of visual history and a solid background for design. I had to learn the modern techniques and computer graphics after my formal studies. Along the way, modeling in clay made way for ArtCam and digital scanning. Rotating pantographs were sold on auction to make space for CNC engraving and laser equipment."

A South African from birth, Van Niekerk's career in coinage began at a pivotal time for her country. She drew inspiration from current political events and eventually from the environment of her homeland.

"I was born in South Africa and started my career at the South African Mint three weeks after Nelson Mandela took the Presidential oath. It was a theatrical time and a couple of golden years within the New South Africa followed. We were in an industry that had to capture these exciting times in precious metal. We told stories and saw the change from the ‘Old South Africa' to the ‘New South Africa,' to where we are today."

These changes are reflected in Van Niekerk's award-winning coin designs. Her first overall COTY winner focuses on the Women of South Africa through an extremely emotive design. While comprising half the population, women were at that time "one of the most marginalized and vulnerable groups in the country," to quote Waheeda Amien of the University of South Africa.

To read the complete article, see:
Natanya Van Niekerk Receives COTY Lifetime Achievement Award (https://www.numismaticnews.net/coin-of-the-year/natanya-van-niekerk-receives-coty-lifetime-achievement-award)

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