History

After the death of Françoise, friends and colleagues decided that her élan and the period in which she lived should be retained in some form. Thus the Françoise van den Bosch Foundation was founded in 1980 to stimulate contemporary jewellery design. In that same year the first Françoise van den Bosch Prize was awarded to Paul Derrez.

Along with the biennial Françoise van den Bosch Prize, between 1983 and 1995 an Award was assigned to an individual or institute for success in promoting jewellery design. The Award has gone, respectively, to:
1983: Bernardine de Neeve; 1985: Hijke Koopmans en Margje Blitterswijk, Galerie Het Kapelhuis, Amersfoort; 1987: Benno Premsela; 1989: Ralph Turner, London; 1991: Liesbeth Crommelin; 1993: VES, Vrije Vormgevers, a professional artists union for people working in the field of jewellery and applied arts; 1995: Museum Het Kruithuis, Den Bosch.

Since 1997, in the year when the Foundation does not award a Prize, it has a non-fixed budget to purchase work from young talented designers, each time from a different country.