The iconic photography agency Magnum Photos, considered the most prestigious in the world given its historical trajectory, has been awarded the Princess of Asturias Award for Concord 2024. This is the last of the eight international awards that the Princess of Asturias Foundation grants each year since 1980.
Cristina de Middel, current president of Magnum Photos, has stated that it is an immense honor to receive the award. “This award represents great support for the agency and encourages us to continue working on building a more just world, one that is far from extremes and fanaticisms” he declared upon receiving the news.
As detailed by the foundation, the concord award recognizes “the work of defense and generalization of human rights, the promotion and protection of peace, freedom, solidarity, world heritage and, in general, of the progress of humanity.
An award that usually goes to humanitarian organizations, but apparently this time it wanted to highlight the importance of photojournalism in a world and information context as turbulent as the current one. The agency has more than a million photographs in its archive, some as memorable as Capa’s Normandy landing, the young woman facing the Armed National Guard with a flower by Marc Riboud, or the Afghan girl by Steve McCurry.
Magnum was created 77 years ago by Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger and David Seymou, four of the great reporters of the moment, with the intention of creating a cooperative and independent agency with which they could market their photographs while retaining the copyright. author.
The candidacy has been proposed by Pablo Gil Cuevas, member of the Princess of Asturias Award for Literature 2024 jury. The awards gala will be next October at the Campoamor theater in Oviedo in a ceremony presided over by the Kings of Spain, the princess of Asturias and Infanta Sofía.
