The Loewe Foundation has announced the 30 finalists for the 2026 Craft Prize, marking the ninth edition of its annual award for contemporary craft.
Selected by an Expert Panel after deliberations in Madrid, the shortlisted works will go on show this spring in Singapore, where the winner will also be revealed.
The prize carries an award of €50,000.
Founded in 2016, the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize was created to celebrate excellence in craftsmanship and to support makers whose work combines artistic vision, technical skill and innovation.
The award is intended for works that reinterpret tradition in a way that feels relevant today, while showing the distinct hand and personal language of the maker.
This year’s finalists reflect the broad range of what contemporary craft can be.
The shortlisted works span textiles, ceramics, glass, metal, jewellery, wood, lacquer, bookbinding and other applied arts.
Some pieces are rooted in long-held making traditions, while others push materials into new sculptural territory.
Loewe frames contemporary craft as an active cultural conversation, asking where it sits between art, tradition, innovation and luxury.
Among the selected works is Fra Fra Tapestry #2 by Baba Tree Master Weavers and Álvaro Catalán de Ocón, a large woven textile based on drone images of circular adobe housing in Ghana’s Gurunsi region.
The work combines AutoCAD planning in Madrid with traditional basketry techniques in Ghana, turning architecture, ritual knowledge and collective labour into a contemporary woven piece.
Other finalists include Jobe Burns’ Laying Vessel, a large steel form made in dialogue with industrial metalworking in the English Midlands, and Adelene Koh’s Endless, which transforms the usually hidden endband of a book spine into a circular sculptural structure.
Chia-Chen Hsieh’s Rhythm in Grid also stands out for pushing bamboo craft into a contemporary sculptural language through a dense internal ripple pattern built from thousands of thin strips.
The final decision will be made by a 13-member jury drawn from design, architecture, criticism, journalism and museum curatorship.
The panel includes 2025 winner Kunimasa Aoki, LOEWE creative directors Jack McCollough and Lázaro Hernandez, ceramicist Magdalene Odundo, architect Frida Escobedo and Olivier Gabet of the Louvre Museum.
Beyond the prize itself, Loewe has also continued to build a wider craft platform through its digital exhibition and The Room, its online archive of more than 2,800 works by Craft Prize alumni.
Together, they position the award not just as a competition, but as an ongoing showcase for contemporary craft around the world.
The works will be on display at Singapore’s National Gallery from 13 May – 14 June 2026, with the winner announced on 12 May.