Shortlisted artists this year for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize were Anna Fox (UK), Zoe Leonard (USA), Sophie Ristelhueber (France) and Donovan Wylie (UK) – all well-known, established photographers. On 17th March film director Terry Gilliam announced Sophie Ristelhueber as the winner and presented her the £30,000 award. The prize were given for Ristelhueber’s exhibition Sophie Ristelhueber at Jeu de Paume in Paris (2009), an exhibition showing traces and marks that war has left on both landscapes and bodies. See some of Ristelhueber’s pictures here http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2009/feb/23/outlook-photography
The Deutsche Börse Photography Prize has run since 1996 and ‘rewards a living photographer of any nationality, who has made the most significant contribution, in exhibition or publication format, to the medium of photography in Europe over the previous year’. The Photographer’s Gallery originally set up the prize, and it’s thought of as one of the most prestigious prizes in the world of photography. Deutsche Börse has sponsered the £30,000 prize since 2005, hence the title.
After London, the exhibition will be shown in Berlin and then at the Deutsche Börse Group’s headquarters in Frankfurt.