Renowned Indian photographer Raghu Rai has been chosen as the first recipient of the inaugural edition of the Academie des beaux-arts Photography Award - William Klein. Established this year, the award is in honour of the celebrated American-born French photographer and filmmaker William Klein, best known for his unusual photography techniques. 

Raghu Rai awarded the Academie des beaux-arts Photography Award

"The jury of the 2019 edition named the photographer Raghu Rai, laureate of the first edition of the Academie des beaux-arts Photography Award - William Klein," Academie des Beaux-Arts said in a statement.

As a consecration award, the prize is intended to reward a photographer for their entire career and commitment to photography. It rewards one photographer of all nationalities and ages. To be awarded every two years, alternating with the Photography Prize Marc Ladreit de Lacharrire, it carries with it a monetary prize of 1,20,000 euros. 

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Raghu Rai was the first photographer to be honoured with the 'Padma Shree'

Rai, who started photography by chance in 1965, began to work for The Statesman as their chief photographer a year later. In 1969, he completed a Thomson fellowship in England and worked for The Times for four weeks. After three half pages of his picture essays were published week after week, he was offered a job at The Times by Norman Hall. He returned to India to continue his unfinished creative explorations in the lanes and by-lanes of his country and won several accolades in the years that followed. In 1972, impressed with Rai's exhibition at Gallery Delpire in Paris, Henri- Cartier Bresson nominated him to Magnum photos. In the same year, he was also awarded the Padma Shree, a first for any photographer, for his work on the Bangladesh War. 

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Rai to be awarded in France 

Awarded the "Photographer of the Year" in America for his story "Human Management of Wildlife in India" for the National Geographic in 1992, Rai, in 2009, was conferred Officer des Arts et des Letters by the French government. He also received a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Indian Government in 2016. The William Klein Photography Award will be presented to Rai in the Palais de l'Institut de France on October 30. It will be closely followed by an exhibition retracing the career of the photographer in the institute in November.

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