Leica Picture of the Year photographers from previous years
©Joel Meyerowitz
Joel Meyerowitz
The selected motif belongs to the photographer’s early period. Born in 1938, Meyerowitz decided spontaneously in the early 1960s to quit his job as art director at a New York ad agency and go on to discover the world as a photographer. A Leica M2 became his preferred tool for honing his visual instincts day after day and swiftly identifying perfect moments within complex everyday scenes.
© Herlinde Koelbl
Herlinde Koelbl
As a keen observer, experienced author, multifaceted artist and insightful chronicler, Koelbl, born in 1939, is one of Germany’s most important photographers. She was inducted into the Leica Hall of Fame in 2024 and honoured with an extensive exhibition at the Leica headquarters in Wetzlar. The image of flowers selected as Leica Picture of the Year forms part of her series Metamorphoses. Its theme is the beauty of the ephemeral, captured here with wonderful mystery and colourful magic.
New York City, USA 2000 © Elliott Erwitt_MAGNUM PHOTOS
Elliott Erwitt
The Leica Picture of the Year 2023 is an iconic shot by photographer Elliott Erwitt, which has also been on display in the Leica Hall of Fame exhibition at Leica Galerie Wetzlar since the Celebration of Photography. The black-and-white photograph was taken in New York City in 2000.
Thomas Hoepker
The 2022 Leica Picture of the Year is an iconic image by German photographer Thomas Hoepker and was featured in the extensive retrospective Thomas Hoepker – Image Maker at the Ernst Leitz Museum Wetzlar. The black and white photo was taken during a road trip that Hoepker took for a few months in 1963.
Ralph Gibson
The photographer, born in Los Angeles in 1939, is one of the most important style-setting photographers of his generation. To this day, Ralph Gibson's visual language is as individual as it is timeless. Often close to the object, he brings his motifs into a fascinating interplay of abstraction and figuration.
On November 4, 2021, Leica Camera AG presented Ralph Gibson with the Leica Hall of Fame Award in Wetzlar.