Helena Jeannette Schamroth ONZM (born 1945)[1] is a New Zealand craft artist and author.
Schamroth was born in Kraków, Poland, just after World War II to two Jewish Holocaust survivors,[2] but her milliner grandmother and shoemaker grandfather did not survive.[3] The family emigrated to Australia and later moved to North Shore, Auckland, New Zealand. She served on the CreativeNZ Arts Board from 2000 to 2006.[4][5]
In the 2005 Queen's Birthday Honours, Schamroth was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to the arts.[6]
Schamroth makes textile arts, exhibiting primarily in Australia and New Zealand.[5] In 2010 she was selected for the 13th International Triennial of Tapestry at the Central Museum of Textiles in Łódź, Poland.[2]
A commission by Godwit Press led to 100 New Zealand Craft Artists which won the Illustrative Arts Award and the E.H. McCormick Best First Book Award for Non-Fiction at the NZ Post book awards.[7][8][9][10] Among the artists included in this work are Raewyn Atkinson, Kobi Bosshard, Barry Brickell, Freda Brierley, Len Castle, Jens Hansen, Manos Nathan and Diggeress Te Kanawa.[11]