LOEWE Foundation Craft Prize 2025
LOEWE FOUNDATION announces the 30 artists shortlisted for the 2025 edition of the LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize. The finalists’ works will be exhibited at Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum in Madrid from 30 May until 29 June 2025.
The works selected for the LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize shortlist will go on display at Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum in Madrid from 30 May to 29 June 2025. Many of the works in this year’s shortlist innovatively transpose ancient craft techniques from their traditional medium to new materials, such as basketry to clay and weaving on the loom to metal, while elsewhere traditional motifs have been reimagined and reinterpreted. Oral tradition, ritual, and knowledge passed through generations are expressed in works that pay reverence to this rich inheritance. While in other works, the artist has forged their own path, creating unique sculptural forms that offer a new direction. Some of these new forms conjure a sense of whimsy and the fantastical, while in others, the artist’s hand is felt more strongly through a gestural treatment of the surface.
This year’s finalists were chosen by a panel of experts from over 4,600 submissions by artisans representing 133 countries and regions. The 30 finalists, representing 18 countries and regions, work across a range of mediums including ceramics, woodwork, textiles, furniture, paper, glass, metal, jewelry, and lacquer. In their deliberations, the panel sought to identify the most outstanding works in terms of technical accomplishment, skills, innovation, and artistic vision.
Sheila Loewe, President of the LOEWE FOUNDATION said: ‘Year on year it gives me such pleasure to see the LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize provide a platform for extraordinary talent and change the perception of craft internationally. Over the past decade, we have seen the Prize transform lives, careers, and build a global community. It is my great privilege to continue my family’s legacy.’
A tribute to LOEWE’s beginnings as a collective craft workshop in 1846, the annual Craft Prize was launched by the LOEWE FOUNDATION in 2016 to celebrate excellence, artistic merit, and innovation in modern craft. The award, envisioned by LOEWE Creative Director Jonathan Anderson, aims to acknowledge the importance of craft in today’s culture and to recognize artists whose talent, vision, and will to innovate, promise to set a new standard for the future.
A tribute to LOEWE’s beginnings as a collective craft workshop in 1846, the annual Craft Prize was launched by tWorks by the 30 finalists will go on display at Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum in Madrid, home to an extensive collection spanning eight centuries that offers an encyclopedic overview of Western art, and will be documented in an exhibition catalogue. Previous iterations of the prize have been exhibited at Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Madrid (COAM), Madrid (2017); The Design Museum, London (2018); Isamu Noguchi’s indoor stone garden ‘Heaven’ at the Sogetsu Kaikan, Tokyo (2019); digitally in a joint presentation with Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris (2021); Seoul Museum of Craft Art (SeMoCA), Seoul (2022); in Isamu Noguchi’s studio at the Noguchi Museum, New York (2023) and Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2024).
Regarding the selection process, Anatxu Zabalbeascoa, Executive Secretary of the LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize Expert Panel, said: ‘The 2025 edition of the LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize continues to explore the various ways artists reinterpret and modernize traditions. With each edition, the exhibition seeks to showcase extraordinary craftsmanship, demonstrating how artisans work with both precious and non-precious materials — using traditional hand tools or cutting-edge technology — to shape a contemporary culture enriched by the talent of diverse and distant creative traditions’.
jury composed of 13 leading figures from the worlds of design, architecture, journalism, criticism, and museum curatorship will select the winner of the 2025 LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize. The winner will be awarded €50,000 and the announcement will be made on 29 May 2025, at the opening of the exhibition at Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum.
#LOEWE #LOEWEFoundation #LOEWEcraftprize The selected finalists for the LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize 2024 are (in alphabetical order, with country or region):
Kobina Adusah (Ghana)
Kunimasa Aoki (Japan)
Akari Aso (Japan)
Caroline Broadhead (United Kingdom)
Scott Chaseling (Australia)
Rei Chikaoka (Japan)
Jessica Costa (Brazil)
Philip Eglin (United Kingdom)
Aspen Golann (United States of America) hors-studio x Cécile Feilchenfeldt (France)
Agnes Husz (Hungary)
Mikio Ishiguro (Japan)
Empar Juanes (Spain)
Jungin Lee (Republic of Korea)
Fang Liang (People’s Republic of China)
Anina Major (The Bahamas) Nifemi Marcus-Bello (Nigeria)
Laura Mays (Republic of Ireland) Didi Ng (Hong Kong, SAR)
Dickens Otieno (Kenya)
Marie Isabelle Poirier Troyano (Spain)
Margaret Rarru Garrawurra (Australia)
Yeunhee Ryu (Republic of Korea)
Sunyi Shin (Sunny) (Republic of Korea)
Zsolt József Simon (Hungary)
Studio Sumakshi Singh (India)
Fumiki Taguchi (Japan)
Lê Thúy (Vietnam)
Matt Wedel (United States of America)
Xiaodong Zhang (People’s Republic of China)
Notes to Editors
For further press information, please contact:
Rees & Co | Carrie Rees | carrie@reesandco.com | +44 020 3137 8776
Experts Panel
Andrew Bonacina, LOEWE Art Consultant and Independent Curator
Antonia Boström, former Director of Collections at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London
Hyeyoung Cho, Chairwoman of the Korea Association of Art and Design
Sara Flynn, ceramicist and LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize 2017 finalist
Kevin Grey, metal artist and LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize 2024 finalist
Wolfgang Lösche, former Head of Exhibition and Fairs at the Chamber of Skilled Trades, Munich
Ibrahim Mahama, mixed media artist
Juha Marttila, LOEWE Leather Goods Design Director
Michelle Millar Fisher, Curator of Contemporary Decorative Arts at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Aya Oki, glass artist and LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize 2024 finalist
Anatxu Zabalbeascoa (Executive Secretary), Architecture and Design Correspondent for El País
Jury
Jonathan Anderson, LOEWE Creative Director
Andrés Anza, winner of the LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize 2024
Minsuk Cho, architect and winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2014
Frida Escobedo, essayist and architect
Naoto Fukasawa, designer and Director of the Japan Folk Crafts Museum, Tokyo
Olivier Gabet, Director of the Department of Decorative Arts at the Louvre Museum, Paris
Sheila Loewe (Chairwoman), President of the LOEWE FOUNDATION
Magdalene Odundo, ceramicist
Wang Shu, architect and Pritzker Prize winner
Deyan Sudjic, essayist and Director Emeritus of the Design Museum, London
Abraham Thomas, Curator of Modern Architecture, Design and Decorative Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Patricia Urquiola, architect and industrial designer
Anatxu Zabalbeascoa, Architecture and Design Correspondent for El País
Applications
Anyone over 18 years of age working in a craft-based profession is welcome to apply.
About LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize
The LOEWE FOUNDATION launched the international annual LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize in 2016 to showcase and celebrate newness, excellence, and artistic merit in modern craft. The LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize 2025 recognizes the shortlisted artists as having made fundamentally important contributions to the development of contemporary craft and spans ceramics, jewelry, textiles, woodwork, glass, metalwork, furniture, papercraft, and lacquer. The Prize functions as a multigenerational snapshot of the utmost excellence in craft today.
The award aims to acknowledge the importance of craft in today’s culture and recognize working artisans whose talent, vision, and will to innovate set a standard for the future. The incentive for the prize was inspired by LOEWE’s beginnings as a collective craft workshop in 1846, reflecting fashion’s vital link to culture and the importance of advanced, specialized knowledge to the field.
Art, craft, and design remain fundamental cornerstones to the house’s present chapter. Any professional artisan aged over 18 can apply for the award, with the sole requirement that the submitted work combine an innovative application of its craft with an original artistic concept.
About LOEWE FOUNDATION The LOEWE FOUNDATION
was established as a private cultural foundation in 1988 by Enrique Loewe, a fourth-generation member of LOEWE’s founding family. Today, under the direction of his daughter Sheila Loewe, the Foundation continues to promote creativity, organize educational programs, and protect cultural heritage in the fields of art, craft, design, photography, poetr,y and dance. The Foundation was awarded the Gold Medal for Merit in the Fine Arts by the Spanish government in 2002.
About LOEWE & Culture
With the LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize, the house reasserts its longstanding commitment to creativity in all forms and disciplines. Culture is a pillar of the brand. LOEWE’s history of important collaborations with artists and artisans who reinterpret and expand the brand’s values, reflects fashion’s vital link to contemporary life, with a strong emphasis on art, design, and craftsmanship. Apart from showcasing the many facets of LOEWE, these cultural projects reflect the transfer of knowledge and the cooperative spirit that have been characteristic of LOEWE since the day it was founded.
About The Room
The Room is a digital platform dedicated to showcasing works by the artists nominated for the LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize, our annual international award celebrating excellence in craftsmanship.
As part of the LOEWE FOUNDATION’s longstanding commitment to supporting contemporary craft, The Room enables the artists to share their work with a global audience and give viewers the opportunity to discover, research, and collect art by some of the world’s most innovative craftspeople working today.
Find out more at theroom.loewe.com About the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum.
The Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum is the public institution that houses one of the most important pictorial collections in the world with almost 900 works of art gathered over seven decades by the Thyssen-Bornemisza family. Although originally a private collection, today it belongs to the Spanish public after its acquisition by the government in 1993, just a year after the museum was opened. Dürer, Rafael, Titian, Rubens, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Manet, Renoir, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Kandinsky, Picasso, Hopper, Rothko. This is just part of the impressive list of great names that make up this collection, the work of just two generations. As though from a textbook, all the artistic movements of Western art from the 13th to 20th centuries are included in the collection, highlighting the exquisite taste of Baron Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza (1875-1947) and of his son Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza (1921-2002). In 2004 a significant part of the Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection was added to it; a collection of over two hundred works that add to the examples of artistic styles and genres of the permanent collection and since 2018, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (TBA21) has been collaborating with the exhibition of proposals by contemporary artists.
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