Award ceremony and exhibition
Friedrich Becker Prize 2026
9 May to 18 October 2026 at the Deutsches Goldschmiedehaus Hanau

The Friedrich Becker Prize, worth €10,000, was awarded to Veronika Fabian by the Gesellschaft für Goldschmiedekunst e.V. on 9 May 2026. Hartwig Rohde, President of the Gesellschaft für Goldschmiedekunst e.V., Dr Maximilian Bieri, Mayor of the City of Hanau, and Malte Guttek, Director of the Deutsches Goldschmiedehaus Hanau, gave speeches at the award ceremony, which was attended by numerous guests at the Wallonian-Dutch Church in Hanau.

This year’s awarding of the Friedrich Becker Prize not only celebrates the 10th anniversary of the prize, but also honours the vitality and enduring relevance of jewellery, utensils and objects. A catalogue has been published to mark the occasion, not only to present the current competition, but also to pay tribute to the award’s namesake and history with texts by Beatriz Chadour-Sampson and Christianne Weber-Stöber.

Veronika Fabian (*1979 in Kecskemét, Hungary) lives and works as a jewellery maker in Hungary. She studied jewellery design at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, London and attended the MASieraad Challenging Jewellery Master’s programme at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. Before this she worked for several years in business and finance, a period that significantly shaped her view of jewellery. Fabian’s work reflects on consumer culture and the significance of everyday objects in people’s personal lives. As a result, 21st-century capitalism and the emergence and decay of value attributions are recurring themes in her work. For Fabian, jewellery serves as a point of intersection between the individual and society. Her work is characterised by an experimental approach to industrially manufactured chains. She modifies them by forging, milling and soldering. This results in highly enlarged forms, such as carabiners, jump rings, bolt rings and chain links. Fabian also alters everyday objects associated with status and identity. She dismantles wine bottles, perfume vials, nail varnish bottles and vinyl records, leading us to guess at their origins. Alongside the exhibition featuring the award-winning piece, you can gain a broader insight into the award-winner’s work in the foyer display case at the Deutsches Goldschmiedehaus Hanau from 10 May to 31 August 2026.

The jury justified its decision in favour of the work “Spring ring XXXL/Clasp me firmly, hold me tight” by Veronika Fabian as follows:
“The selected work unfolds jewellery references on several levels. The starting point is the bolt ring, originally a functional fastener, here enlarged to form a neckpiece, thus becoming the supporting body of the work. Industrially manufactured chains form the starting material. They are compacted, soldered and pressed into a fine-walled structure by means of a transformative process. A new, compact form thus emerges from the linearity of the individual chains. This interweaving of forms and attributions also continues on a semantic level: clasp becomes jewellery, series becomes individual piece, function becomes sign. The work raises questions about the norms and conventions of jewellery through this transformation of material and symbols. It also raises questions about self-determination, value and meaning within its functional codes”.

The Friedrich Becker Prize 2026 exhibition can be seen at the Deutsches Goldschmiedehaus Hanau from 9 May to 18 October 2026. A total of 150 entries were submitted to the competition from Europe, Asia, North America and Australia. The Jury – Paul Derrez, Prof. Melanie Isverding and Dr Christianne Weber-Stöber – selected 48 works by 49 artists for the shortlist, which will be presented. The exhibition showcases precise craftsmanship and sophistication as well as creative expressiveness. The works represent a dynamic dialogue between craftsmanship, design and art – a fascinating, exciting field that opens up new perspectives. Among them is a work by the Vietnamese-German jewellery maker Sam Tho Duong, who already impressed the Friedrich Becker Prize jury in 2014. His signature style is characterised by the meticulous and elaborate use of bead embroidery. He uses this to embellish old bubble wrap with floral motifs, creating body jewellery that evokes associations with a snake. Headphones and ceramic figurines, considered worthless and without a function, become the central material in the pendant by Corrina Goutos from the US. Her work deals with the value of the life cycles of everyday objects. More of her works are currently on display in the exhibition “Leaving Traces. Telling Stories through Materiality” at the Deutsches Goldschmiedehaus Hanau. The exhibition also includes a necklace by the Norwegian Sigurd Brongers. His humorous work combines mechanical and playful aspects. The blades of a small turbine can be set in motion by a stream of air.

Malte Guttek, Director of the Deutsches Goldschmiedehaus Hanau:
“The 10th Friedrich Becker Prize is a very special occasion for us to celebrate because it highlights both the relevance of contemporary jewellery and the tradition it is founded on. The international entries testify to its renown, which radiates beyond national borders. It is a great pleasure to show these works in Hanau”.

The Gesellschaft für Goldschmiedekunst has been promoting international networking in the contemporary jewellery and utensil scene by awarding the Friedrich Becker Prize every three years since 1999. The prize was founded by Hildegard Becker (1928–2018) in memory of her husband Friedrich Becker (1922–1997), goldsmith and designer of kinetic objects. The previous nine prizewinners were: Rudolf Bott (1999), Anette Walz (2002), Peter Bauhuis (2005), Robert Baines (2008), Alexander Vohswinkel (2011), Sam Tho Duong (2014), Michael Becker (2017), Junwon Jung (2020) and Norman Weber (2023).

Hartwig Rohde, President of the Gesellschaft für Goldschmiedekunst e.V.:
“It fills us with pride that we can look back on a remarkable history with ten awards. In addition to excellent design and craftsmanship, this history also reflects stylistic developments in the contemporary scene”.

The participants of this year’s competition exhibition at the Deutsches Goldschmiedehaus in Hanau are: Sharareh Aghaei (DE), Miriam Arentz (DE), Nicole Beck (DE), Michael Berger (DE), Alice Biolo (GB), Heather Blake (GB), Alexander Blank (DE), Iris Bodemer (DE), Catalina Brenes (IT), Helen Britton (DE), Sigurd Bronger (NO), Sungho Cho (KR), Soo Hyun Chou (KR), Sarah Cossham (DE), Andreas Decker (DE), Arianaz Dehghan (DE), Dong Ding (GB), Sam Tho Duong (DE), Veronika Fabian (HU), Benedikt Fischer and Rudy De Gruyl (NL), Yael Friedman (IL), Corrina Goutos (DE), Benedict Haener (CH), Juan Harnie (BE), Mirjam Hiller (DE), Koichi Io (JP), Mari Ishikawa (DE), Svenja John (DE), Empar Juanes (ES), Nikita Kavryzhkin (DE), Mira Kim (CA), Maria Konschake (BE), Andrew Lamb (GB), Xin Liu (CN), Christine Matthias (DE), Gina Nadine Müller (DE), Tim Neumann (DE), Sonia Pibernat (ES), Sarah Pulvertaft (GB), Jenny Scheidegger (CH), Karin Seufert (DE), Martina Tornow (DE), Tim Udvardi-Lakos (DE), Lingjie Wang (CN), Nana Watanabe (JP), Guja Youssefi (DE) and Yuzhe Zhang (CN).

Preisverleihung mit Jury
v.l.n.r.: Dr. Maximilian Bieri (Bürgermeister der Stadt Hanau), Malte Guttek (Geschäftsführer der Gesellschaft für Goldschmiedekunst e.V.), Paul Derrez (Schmuckkünstler), Veronika Fabian (Preisträgerin), Dr. Christianne Weber-Stöber (Kunsthistorikerin), Prof. Melanie Isverding (Professorin für Schmuck und körperbezogene Objekte an der Hochschule für angewandte Wissenschaft und Kunst Hildesheim), Hartwig Rohde (Präsident der Gesellschaft für Goldschmiedekunst e.V.)
© David Arzt