Ladislav Sutnar Prize Laureates

Debbie Millman / USA
American designer, illustrator, author, and educator, has been awarded the Ladislav Sutnar Prize for her long-term work, significant contributions, and innovative approach in various fields of art and education. This includes her practical design work, publishing activities, and efforts in the popularisation of design.

Debbie Millman is a renowned designer and expert in branding and visual communication. Through her publishing and curatorial work, including the award-winning and widely popular Design Matters podcast, she provides both the public and professionals with valuable insights into the creative processes of some of the world’s leading figures in art and design. Her books and articles on design broaden the theoretical discourse within the field and contribute to a wider understanding of the role of design in society. As an educator at the School of Visual Arts in New York, she helps shape the next generation of designers and develops innovative approaches to creative practice. Millman is also co-owner and editorial director of PrintMag.com.

The Glasgow School of Art / UK
One of Europe’s and the world’s leading art schools, has been awarded the Ladislav Sutnar Prize for its long-term and fundamental influence on the development of art education and research, and for its active and innovative approach to addressing global challenges through design, contributing not only to artistic but also to social development.

Founded in 1845, the Glasgow School of Art is now a world-renowned centre for innovation in art and design. Its graduates regularly make their mark on the international stage, with many having a major influence on contemporary art and design trends. Its courses cover a wide range of art and design disciplines. The school, with its iconic building designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, is renowned for its innovative approach to teaching and its emphasis on combining theory and practice.

IDEA Magazine / JP
The renowned Japanese periodical receives the Ladislav Sutnar Prize for its long-term and significant influence in the fields of graphic design, typography, and visual culture. Through its approach, it enriches not only the design field but also develops visual culture and promotes its interdisciplinary growth.

IDEA Magazine has been published since 1953 and is currently issued quarterly. Along with other professional publications from the same publisher, it is a sought-after source of inspiration and expertise for professionals and enthusiasts around the world. IDEA Magazine is known for its ability to connect contemporary trends with the historical roots of design, offering a unique perspective on the development of visual communication. It stands out not only for its high-quality content but also for its cutting-edge graphic design and precision in printing, which makes it one of the most influential magazines of its kind.

Magdalena Jetelová / CZ
Magdalena Jetelová received the Ladislav Sutnar Prize for her interdisciplinary projects involving conceptual art, land art, architecture, sculptures and light projections embedded in specific spaces, as well as for her long-term teaching activities.

Magdalena Jetelová is an internationally renowned artist who gained prominence through her monumental objects with a strong political undertone already during the time she spent in her home country, where she pursued various artistic activities to distance herself from the official visual art scene of the time. After moving to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1985, she received international recognition not only due to her unique projects, but also due to her teaching positions at prestigious art schools such as the Art Academy Düsseldorf and the Academy of Fine Arts Munich.

University of Applied Arts Vienna / AT
The renowned art university received the award for its activities that draw on historical traditions, but also keep developing new ideas about how to participate in creating and managing the changes in technologies and media.

The University of Applied Arts Vienna is the successor to the Imperial Royal Arts and Crafts School founded in 1867, which was closely affiliated with the Imperial Royal Austrian Museum of Art and Industry (today known as the Museum of Applied Art). The school was elevated to college in 1941 and officially designated as a university in 1970. Its current name was introduced in 1998. Apart from teaching, the university conducts research with the aim to define key thematic points in response to current challenges in society, to design work processes open towards society, and to actively anchor the results in the change-oriented public discourse.

Printed Matter, Inc. / USA
Printed Matter, Inc., a globally renowned non-profit organization, won the award for spreading and promoting artists’ books, publications designed as artworks of their own.

Established in 1976 by a group of personalities active in the field of art (Sol LeWitt and Lucy Lippard among others), Printed Matter responded to the increasing interest in publications created by artists as works of art. Its comprehensive approach sees artists’ books as remarkable expressions of the current artistic practice. While focusing on this international phenomenon, Printed Matter also founded the New York Art Book Fair and the Los Angeles Art Book Fair, which have developed into leading international gatherings for the distribution of and research in artists’ books and related publications.

Stuart Haygarth / GB
The prominent British artist and key figure in contemporary design, received the Ladislav Sutnar Prize for his work, which focuses on ecological issues, waste and overproduction.

The central motif of Haygarth's objects and installations is the elevation of ordinary or discarded objects of everyday life to luxury products. At the same time, the story and the process of collecting and sorting materials is an important part of his work. His now-iconic Tide chandelier from 2005, created from multicoloured, mostly plastic objects washed up on the shore, is considered to be one of Haygarth's most successful designs. Its impact is not only due to its visual qualities, but – as in the case of other works – to its strong concept.

Bauhaus-Universität Weimar / DEU
The renowned art university received the prize for fulfilling Gropius' vision of Art and Technology - a new unity through its specialisation in artistic and technical fields and interdisciplinary cooperation.

Since 1996, the university has been following in the tradition of its distinguished predecessor, which gave birth to a new type of modern art school, not only through its name but also through its willingness to experiment, international openness and creativity. Its faculties and research areas offer a wide range of teaching opportunities in about 40 courses of study, including fine arts, design, visual communication, media design, media studies, computer science, architecture, civil engineering, materials science, processing technology, environment and management.

ZKM - Zentrum für Kunst und Medien Karlsruhe / DEU
The globally renowned cultural institution operating at the intersection of art and science received the Ladislav Sutnar Prize for its research activities, projects and education in the field of digitalization of art.

ZKM Karlsruhe was founded in 1989 with the mission of exploring the possibilities of merging traditional art with modern media technologies. It deals with a wide range of media and genres – both spatial arts such as painting, photography and sculpture, and time-based arts such as film, video, media art, music, dance, theatre and performance. With its research platform, media library, library and exhibition spaces, it provides scholars and artists from all over the world with ideal conditions for carrying out theoretical and practical projects.

Stefan Sagmeister / AT
Stefan Sagmeister received the Ladislav Sutnar Prize for the courage he has been demonstrating in graphic design all his life.

He studied this discipline at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and, on a Fulbright scholarship, at the Pratt Institute in New York. In 1993 he founded the Sagmeister Inc. studio in New York and started creating logos, graphic designs and covers for various clients including the Rolling Stones, HBO, the Guggenheim Museum and Time Warner. He has been collaborating with the musicians David Byrne and Lou Reed on a long-term basis. Stefan Sagmeister has received many prestigious awards and his works have been exhibited in Zurich, Vienna, New York, Berlin, Osaka, Prague, Köln and Soul. He lives and works in New York, where he teaches at the School of Visual Arts.

ArsElectronica Linz / AT
The cultural, educational and scientific centre ArsElectronica received the Ladislav Sutnar Prize for its support of the connection between art, technology and social sciences and for its exemplary long-term work on developing a space for a free demonstration of ground-breaking prototypes, new forms of communication, innovative business models and prophetic works of art.

ArtsElectronica was established in 1979. Its philosophy is based on the postulate that digitalization is not a technological, but social development. The organisation has successfully evolved ever since and widened its activities and assets, proving that the ideas underlying its establishment were right. ArtsElectronia’s activities respond to the fast pace of the digital revolution.

Kunst Akademie Düsseldorf / DEU
The renowned arts university received the Ladislav Sutnar Prize for its long-term quality in providing education in the field of art and for its extraordinary support of cosmopolitan dialogical spirit of art.

The academy’s tradition dates back to the 1760s. In the course of time, it has become an internationally acclaimed institution. The highlights of its cultural history include the so-called Düsseldorf school of painting in the first half of the 19^th century and the period between the late 1950s and the end of the 1970s, when it was associated with such personalities as Joseph Beuys, Heinz Mack, Otto Piene, Gerhard Richter and Günther Uecker. The Academy’s educational approach is currently considered to be one of the most liberal in the world. Its teaching staff consists of excellent teachers from Great Britain, USA, Austria, Denmark, Belgium, Germany and other countries.

At the ceremony in Pilsen, the Ladislav Sutnar Prize was also handed over to a representative of Svenska Tecknare, an association of Swedish illustrators and graphic designers. The association had received the prize already in 2020 when the awarding ceremony did not take place due to the global pandemic.