Jens Ritter
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| Born | July 11, 1972 Bad Dürkheim |
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Jens Ritter (born July 11, 1972, in Bad Dürkheim) [1]is a German guitar builder and artist.
Life
Jens Ritter Ritter, a trained mechanical engineering technician, began tinkering with his electric guitar as a teenager. He learned carving from his grandfather and received the necessary tools from his father. He played bass in various regional bands and created his first two electric basses in 1994; he gave these to a writer for the magazine Gitarre & Bass and received a good review. For the first three years, Ritter pursued bass building as a hobby before turning it into a professional career. He exhibited his instruments at Musikmesse Frankfurt and the National Association of Music Merchants in the USA, attracting some notable customers; among the first were Doug Wimbish and Phil Lesh. After initially creating electric basses, Ritter also began manufacturing electric guitars, gaining customers like George Benson[2][3]. He has also crafted guitars for Prince, Lady Gaga, Mary J. Blige, and Otto Waalkes.[4]
Since 2008, Jens Ritter has also been active as an artist. With the opening of an exhibition of his electric guitars and artworks at the MPK Museum (Kaiserslautern) in 2015, Ritter officially began his career as an artist. At the Rock'n'Roll Masterpieces exhibition in April 2023 at the Galerie Hohmann (Palm Springs, CA), Ritter released the art series "Sleeping Beauties" - high-quality electric guitars that are deactivated and sealed for a period of 100 years.
Since 2007, Ritter's workshop has been located in a former vineyard in the Palatinate region of Deidesheim, where he and his team produce about 120 instruments and artworks each year, mostly for export; about 60% go to the USA. The production of an object can take up to one and a half years or longer and can cost up to €260,000. Ritter's electric guitars and bass artworks are purchased not only by musicians but also by collectors and museums; his instruments can be seen in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City)[5], the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington, D.C.|Washington, D.C.), the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), the Technoseum (Mannheim), the NAMM Museum (Carlsbad, California|Carlsbad, CA), and the MPK Museum (Kaiserslautern). Guitar builder Jens Ritter
Materials
Ritter's instruments are made from woods like maple, mahogany, or ebony, but occasionally also from woods that do not usually produce good sound; for the electric guitar The Pechstein", he used oak,[6] and in 2019 he created an electric guitar from the "Kerwebaum" of the Deidesheim wine festival, a spruce.[7]
References
- ↑ "Press release No. 305 from November 2, 2017: Three Candidates Nominated for the Palatinate Prize for Crafts" (PDF). District Association of the Palatinate, accessed on. September 1, 2019.
- ↑ "Die Rheinpfalz". Petra Depper-Koch: Schlafende Schönheiten aus der Pfalz. Zuhause in der Pfalz Nr. 255. November 3, 2018.
- ↑ Holtmann, Franz (August 25, 2019). "20 Years Ritter Instruments,". Musik-Media.
- ↑ "TV feature about guitar builder Jens Ritter". Coffee or Tea, afternoon TV show, 108 minutes. Host: Heike Greis. A production by SWR Television. April 5, 2022.
- ↑ "Electric Bass, 2011". The Metropolitan Museum of Art, accessed on. August 25, 2019.
- ↑ ""Riesling Guitar" goes under the hammer". Gitarre & Bass. October 26, 2017.
- ↑ Jochen Willner: Kerwespitze: For 1410 Euros to Neustadt-Haardt. In: Die Rheinpfalz, Mittelhaardter Rundschau No. 194, August 22, 2019.
External links
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