Suzan Frecon receives the Alexej von Jawlensky Prize
The US-American painter Suzan Frecon is awarded the Alexej von Jawlensky Prize 2025 by the state capital Wiesbaden.
The jury honored Frecon's consistently reduced work, which impresses with its intensive examination of light, color and material. The new Alexej von Jawlensky Prize was also awarded for the first time: Leipzig-based artist Franziska Holstein received the award for her serial abstract paintings.
The Alexej-von-Jawlensky Prize honors the life's work of important contemporary artists and is awarded in cooperation with Spielbank Wiesbaden and Nassauische Sparkasse.
The jury, consisting of Prof. Dr. Christiane Lange, Director Staatsgalerie Stuttgart (Chairwoman of the Jury), Mrs. Christiane Meyer-Stoll, Chief Curator and Member of the Directorate Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein and Prof. Dr. Frédéric Bußmann, Director Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, awarded the prize to the US-American painter Suzan Frecon.
Suzan Frecon is the eighth winner after Agnes Martin (1991), Robert Mangold (1998), Brice Marden (2004), Rebecca Horn (2007), Ellsworth Kelly (2012), Richard Serra (2017) and Frank Stella (2022). The award will be presented on the occasion of the 2027 exhibition at the Museum Wiesbaden in connection with the prize.
Jury statement
Suzan Frecon, born in 1941 in Mexico/Pennsylvania, has asserted herself over decades through her continuous work in a male-dominated art world. Her work explores the interplay of light and color in an impressive way, whereby the different surface structures are of the greatest subtlety. The jury was impressed by the consistency and persistence of her exploration of the possibilities and limits of painting - beyond all fashions. With the reduction of her language, she creates intense works of quiet intimacy. The award honors an artistic work that is distinguished by its integrity, independence and calm.
Awarded for the first time: Alexej von Jawlensky Award
The Alexej von Jawlensky Prize was also awarded for the first time. With prize money of 10,000 euros and an exhibition at the Nassauischer Kunstverein, the award honors a young artist whose work is related in content or form to the main prizewinner of the Jawlensky Prize.
Sponsorship award goes to Franziska Holstein
On the occasion of the award ceremony for Suzan Frecon, the Leipzig painter Franziska Holstein (born 1978) will receive the Alexej von Jawlensky Prize, which is being awarded for the first time. In her strictly serial, abstract painting, she explores the relationship between colors and surfaces, which she transfers from panel painting into space. In an almost meditative working process, she creates works in which the traces of the physical production method are preserved and thus convey a high degree of sensuality and materiality. In her works, Holstein deliberately dispenses with titles and instead uses numbering in order to avoid ambiguity and focus solely on the aesthetic experience in contrast to a narrative level, according to the jury statement.