In celebration of the 40th anniversary of the respected Leica Oskar Barnack Award, Leica Camera AG further heightens the prestige of the award with a new nomination-based submission process.
In a shift away from the traditional application-based model, the Leica Oskar Barnack Award will consider finalists and ultimately select winners based on nominations from 70 world-renowned photographic experts from over 30 countries. With this nomination process, the honor of being chosen as a finalist is an esteemed accomplishment of its own, as they are recognized and hand-selected by some of the most respected figures impacting the world of photography.
Each nominator will elect three photographers based upon their personal evaluation and judgement of the photographer’s work. The only requirements for nominations for the Award are that the photographer’s work must be a documentary or conceptual work on the theme of the relationship between mankind and its environment. In addition to the three photographers nominated for the main Award, each jury member will nominate one photographer under 30 years old for the Newcomer Award.
“Documentary photography is at the core of Leica’s storied history and a form or photography that continues to be very close to our hearts,” shares Karin Rehn Kaufmann, Art Director & Chief Representative Leica Galleries International, and Head of the LOBA Jury. “It felt right that approaching the 40th anniversary of our Award honoring the original documentary photographer, we raise it to an even higher level of worldwide recognition and prestige with this new panel of nominators.”
The Leica Oskar Barnack Award was founded in the year 1979 as tribute to Oskar Barnack, who revolutionized photography in 1914 with the invention of the first compact and portable Leica camera. In 1980 Floris Bergkamp was awarded as the first photographer with the Leica Oskar Barnack Award. Past recipients of the award encompass illustrious names in photography including Sebastião Salgado (twice), Jan Grarup, Dominic Nahr (first Newcomer), Jane Evelyn Atwood, Eugene Richards and Chris Steele-Perkins.
In May, the jury will gather at the Leica Camera headquarters in Wetzlar to select the winner of the 2020 Leica Oskar Barnack Award. For the first time in the Award’s 40 year history, the winner will receive a prize of €40,000, in addition to a Leica camera worth €10,000. The winning series will also be shown as part of a touring exhibition at Leica Galleries around the world and at selected photo festivals.
Additionally, the winner of the Newcomer Award will receive a photography assignment and two weeks of tutoring at Leica Camera AG Headquarters in Wetzlar, as well as a Leica Q camera worth €5,000.
The ceremony to present both winners will be held in Wetzlar on September 24, 2020. In celebration of 40 years of recognizing talented photographers, a special exhibition will showcase photographs from the 2020 LOBA winner, as well as works from select previous winners at the Ernst Leitz Museum and Leica Gallery Wetzlar. The LOBA magazine, presenting the winners in detail with comprehensive portfolios and background information, will be published to accompany the exhibition.
The international panel of nominators is comprised of the following:
Stuart Alexander (United Kingdom), Editor-in-Chief at Delpire
Monica Allende (Spain), Curator
Alia Alyasi (UAE), from Louvre Abu Dhabi
Peggy Sue Amison (UAE), Artistic Director for East Wing Gallery, Dubai
Jose Luis Amores (Spain), Director of EFTI (Centro Internacional De Fotografía y Cine)
Regina Anzenberger (Austria), Director, Anzenberger Gallery, Vienna
Michael Benson (United Kingdom), Director of Prix Pictet and founder of Photo London
Thomas Borberg (Denmark), Chief Photo Editor at Politiken
Christian Boros (Germany), Agentur Boros, Distanz Verlag and Boros Foundation
Bruno Boudjelal (France), Photographer
Neil Burgess (United Kingdom), Editor, Curator, Publisher
Manila Camarini (Italy), Director of Photography La Repubblica
Krzysztof Candrowicz (Poland), Art Director, Curator
Claudio Carreras (Spain), Photo Editor
Marianne Catzaras (Tunisia), Photographer
Gintaras Česonis (Latvia), Curator at Kaunas Photography Gallery
Irina Chmyreva (Russia), Art Director, PhotoVisa International Photo Festival, Krasnodar
Claudio Composti (Italy), Gallerist and Curator
José Miguel Moreira de Sousa Nogueira (Portugal), Photo Editor at Câmara Municipal do Porto
Clara de Tezanos (Guatemala), Director and Co-Founder, Guatephoto and la Fototeca
Simindokht Dehghani (Iran), Director of Ag Galerie, Teheran
Benedetta Donato (Italy), Curator
Rune Eraker (Norway), Photographer and Curator
James Estrin (USA), Photo Editor at the New York Times
Behzad Farazollahi (Norway), Founder and Director at MELK
Xuan Feng (China), Founder and Group Editorial Director of HuaSheng Media
Joan Fontcuberta (Spain), Curator
Alice Gabriner (USA), Photo Editor
Alessia Glaviano (Italy), Photo editor at Vogue Italy
Walter Guadagnini (Italy), Professor at the University in Bologna and Director of Camera
Sunil Gupta (India), Artist, Writer, Activist and Curator
David Hagger (Australia), Curator
Nick Hannes (Belgium), Photography teacher
Magdalena Herrera (France), Director of Photography at GEO France
Caroline Hunter (United Kingdom), Picture Editor at The Guardian
Virágvölgyi István (Hungary), Curator at Robert Capa Center
I-Jong Juan (China), Photographer, Writer, Publisher, Photographic Professor
Rue Kothari (UAE), Director of Downtown Design
Matjaz Krivic (Slovenia), Photographer
Anna Lacoste (France), Curator
Eyal Landesman (Israel), Founder and Artistic Director of the Israeli Photography Festival
Oliver Laurent (USA), Director of Photography International Edition at Washington Post
Gwen Lee (Singapore), Co-founder of the Singapore International Photo Festival
Steven Lee (Malaysia), Director of the Kuala Lumpur Photography Awards
Bettina Leidl (Austria), Director of Kunst Haus Wien and Foto Wien Fotofestival
Mark Lubell (USA), Executive Director International Center of Photography, New York
Elisa Medde (Netherland), Photo editor at Foam magazine
Azu Nwagbogu (Nigeria), Director of African Artists' Foundation and Lagos Photo festival
Naoko Ohta (Japan), Founder of Tokyo Curiosity
Silvia Omedes (Spain), Curator and Photo Editor
Manuel Rivera Ortiz (Puerto Rico/USA), Photographer
Hercules Papaioannou (Greece), Director of Thessaloniki Museum of Photography
Søren Pagter (Denmark), Head of Photography Department, Danish School of Journalism
Andrei Polikanov (Russia), Director of Photography at Russian Reporter
Brett Rogers (United Kingdom), Curator, Director of the Photographers' Gallery, London
Moshe Rosenzveig (Australia), Founder and Director Head on Photo Festival
Gen Sadakane (Germany), Founder and Creative Director at EyeEm
Alan Schaller (United Kingdom), Photographer and Co-founder of SPI
Kazuko Sekji (Japan), Chief Curator of Tokyo Photographic museum
Laura Serani (France), Curator and Author
Johan Sjostrom (Sweden), Curator of Exhibitions, Gothenburg Museum of Art
Sujong Song (South Korea), Photography consultant
Enrico Stefanelli (Italy), Director of Photolux Festival
Anthony Suau (USA), Photographer
Olga Sviblova (Russia), Director of Multi Media Art Museum, Moscow
Gaia Tripoli (United Kingdom), London-based Photo Editor for New York Times Magazine
Nanda van den Berg (Netherland), Director of Huis Marseille
Benjamin Villegas (Colombia), Owner of Villegas Editores
Vineet Vohra (India), Street Photographer
Duan Yuting (China), Founder and Director Lianzhou Foto Festival, Lianzhou Museum of Photography