The Heinz Family Foundation selected photojournalist James Nachtwey '70 and five others to receive the 12th annual Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities, it announced Monday. Nachtwey will receive the $250,000 award from the Heinz Family Foundation in a private ceremony in Pittsburgh this October.
Nachtwey, who studied art history and political science at Dartmouth, is known for his ability to express human suffering through photography.
The Heinz Award, established by Teresa Heinz in honor of her late husband, Sen. John Heinz, honors Americans who have made outstanding contributions to the arts, humanities and public policy, among other areas.
Inspired by images of the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement, Nachtwey taught himself photography while working aboard ships in the Merchant Marine as an apprentice news film editor. His first photography job was in 1976 for a New Mexico newspaper.
In 1980 Nachtwey moved to New York, where he began his career as a freelance magazine photographer. In 1984 he joined Time magazine, where he still works. In addition, Nachtwey worked with the photography firm Black Star from 1980 to 1985, served as a member of the photography cooperative Magnum from 1986 to 2001 and founded the photography agency VII.
Although Nachtwey has won the Magazine Photographer of the Year award seven times, the Robert Capa Gold Medal five times and the World Press Award twice, the Heinz Award is his most well-known honor to date. His coverage of social issues in war-torn countries and the Sept. 11 attacks have defined him as a noteworthy artist sensitive to the human condition.
"As a photojournalist, James Nachtwey has created art, not art that offers a new technique, but art that powerfully exposes man's inhumanity to man," Heinz said. "He photographs people who need to be brought to our attention, people whose truths need to be known in a visual context."
Nachtwey said that photography has enabled him to encounter people who have struck him with their resiliency, faith and strength.
"Honesty in photography is the source of its power," Nachtwey said. "As perhaps no other medium, the camera can distill the emotion of a single moment and convey the drama that surrounds it."
The photographer has yet to specify what he plans to do with his award money.
