SPANISH fashion house Loewe has announced it is launching a prize recognising outstanding achievements in craftsmanship. Spearheaded by Creative Director Jonathan Anderson, the annual international Loewe Craft Prize aims to “showcase and celebrate the work of exceptionally talented artisans working in a range of craft-based professions”.
The Loewe Foundation, founded in 1988 by Enrique Loewe Lynch, was primarily established to support design and craftsmanship and was awarded the Gold Medal for Merit in the Fine Arts in 2002, the “highest honour granted by the Spanish Government”.
Ramón Puig Cuyàs – Series Subtle Architectures No. 1512,2014
Jonathan Saunders said of the prize, “Craft is immensely important to me as an inspiration so I wanted to create a platform to highlight things that are engineered by hand, by ceramicists, basket-weavers, furniture designers, jewellery makers, and other people who work silently and are often under-appreciated. In reality, there is nothing harder than finding a way to make an object that has a formula of its own and speaks in the maker’s own language, creating a dialogue that didn’t exist before.”
Board member Ramón Puig Cuyàs, whose work is pictured above, will sit on the Experts Panel of Loewe’s Craft Prize. To celebrate his work in conjunction with the prize, a collection of his brooches will be exhibited in Loewe’s Mount Street store during the London Craft Week.
by Thomas Marrington
The winner of the LOEWE Craft Prize 2017 will be announced in April 2017 and receive 50,000 Euros.