Loewe Announces the Winner of Its 2026 Craft Prize
The foundation awarded Korean artist Jongjin Park for his work Strata of Illusion
Reported by Harper's Bazaar.
The craft world has a new name to know. Jongjin Park, a Korean ceramic artist, has just been named the winner of the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize 2026 — one of the most prestigious honors in contemporary craft — for his work Strata of Illusion. The announcement was made in Singapore, and comes with a €50,000 prize.
What did it take to win? Thousands of layered paper sheets, each coated in colored porcelain slip, compressed into a rectilinear mass and then deliberately warped by kiln heat into something vaguely chair-like — and entirely unlike anything you've seen before. Park's practice lives in the friction between control and collapse, between rigidity and surrender. According to Harper's Bazaar, the jury chose the piece for its ability to "confound expectations of what ceramics can be," noting that its air-shaped form echoes glassblowing while its paper layering nods to bookbinding. It's ceramics doing things ceramics aren't supposed to do.
The Field Was Formidable
Park was selected from 30 finalists drawn from over 5,100 submissions across 133 countries and regions — a scale that makes the win even more significant. The jury included architect Frida Escobedo, designer Patricia Urquiola, curator Abraham Thomas, and Olivier Gabet, alongside Loewe creative directors Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez. Two special mentions were also awarded: Baba Tree Master Weavers and Spanish artist Álvaro Catalán de Ocón for a communally woven Ghanaian tapestry, and Italian artist Graziano Visintin for Collier, two necklaces built from microscopic gold cubes finished with the ancient niello metalworking technique. Each special mention receives €5,000.
The Loewe Foundation has been running this prize since 2016 as a direct extension of the house's nearly 180-year history as a craft atelier — an origin story the brand takes seriously in ways most luxury labels don't. McCollough and Hernandez said in a statement that the shortlisted works collectively reflect "an extraordinary sense of commitment, creativity, and innovation." This year's selections leaned notably toward disruption of classical form, which feels intentional: craft at its most exciting isn't preservation, it's provocation.
All 30 shortlisted works will be on view at the National Gallery Singapore from May 13 through June 14 — and if Strata of Illusion is any indication, it's worth the trip.
When fashion's oldest houses champion the artists pushing craft into genuinely strange new territory, everyone benefits — including the culture.
Read the original at Harper's Bazaar.
