Danner Prize 2014

Isabelle Enders won the €15,000 Danner Prize. Her Pfefferlinge 1–5 [Little Peppercorns 1-5] combine unconventional humor with everyday practicality. Enders studied the goldsmith’s and silversmith’s art with Prof. Ulla Mayer and Prof. Simone ten Hompel at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Nuremberg from 2006 to 2012. Established in Munich in 1920, the Danner Foundation confers the Danner Prize once every three years. The competition encourages new ideas and developments in the world of crafts. This year’s patron is Bavarian State Minister Ilse Aigner. Honorary prizes worth 12,000 euros were awarded to Alexander Blank for his Jimmy series of brooches, to Barbara Butz for a planar ceramic wall piece, to Annamaria Leiste for her Traumgekrönt [Dream-Crowned] jewelry for the neck, and to the silversmith and sculptor Rose Stach for her Heli carpet.

Isabelle Enders, Pepper mills Pfefferlinge1–5 [Little Peppercorns 1-5]. Brass, silver.

Circa 200 craftspeople participated in the competition in 2014. Pieces by 47 of these participants are on display in an exhibition at Schlossmuseum Aschaffenburg. Last year’s submissions proved that the boundaries between the applied arts and the fine arts are becoming increasingly permeable. “In their quest for their own styles, young craftspeople are questioning traditional ideas and using creative impulses from other areas such as design, innovative, technology or the visuals arts,” writes the Munich-based foundation. This year too, the high-carat jurors’ decisions ensure that the Danner Prize continues to set international standards.