Peace Prize for Sebastião Salgado

June 19, 2019

Photographer Sebastião Salgado has been honoured with the German Book Trade Peace Prize 2019.
Photographer Sebastião Salgado has been honoured with the German Book Trade Peace Prize 2019. Sebastião Salgado is the first photographer to receive the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade.

His signature monochrome images show people displaced by war or climate crisis disasters, as well as those rooted in their natural environment – making "the defiled earth equally as visible ... as its fragile beauty.” The jury goes on to describe Salgado as an artist "who works for social justice and peace through his photographs, and who lends urgency to the global debate on nature and protecting the climate."

The prestigious award, which is endowed with 25,000 euros, was established in 1950 in order to honour outstanding contributions to peace in the fields of literature, science or art. The award ceremony will take place on 20 October at the St. Paul’s Church in Frankfurt, marking the conclusion of this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair.

In addition to his artistic achievements, the 75-year-old photographer is also recognised for his environmental work. In the late 1990s, Salgado transformed the cattle ranch he had grown up on in Minas Gerais into a conservation area (Instituto Terra), which he has been successfully reforesting for the past 20 years.

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Friedenspreis des deutschen Buchhandels
Instituto Terra
 

Peace Prize for Sebastião Salgado