Finnish-American photographer Arno Rafael Minkkinen has been awarded the prestigious William Klein Photography Prize by the French Academy of Fine Arts for 2025. The prize, worth 120,000 euros, recognizes photographers of any nationality and age for their entire career and commitment to photography. Minkkinen will receive the award on Friday, November 14, 2025, at the Great Session Hall of the Palace of the Institute of France.
The William Klein Photography Prize was established in 2019 by the Academy of Fine Arts with support from the Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum, honoring the work of William Klein (1926-2022). This lifetime achievement award is presented every two years, alternating with the Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière Photography Prize, which recognizes established photographers working or residing in France who are engaged in specific projects. Previous winners include Raghu Rai from India in 2019, Annie Leibovitz from the United States in 2021, and Graciela Iturbide from Mexico in 2023.
The award ceremony will be conducted by Laurent Petitgirard, the perpetual secretary of the Academy, and Zhong Weixing, founder of the Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum. In conjunction with the prize, Minkkinen will be featured as a guest at the Planches Contact Festival, which will showcase the results of his residency at Les Franciscaines and a retrospective exhibition on Deauville Beach from October 18, 2025, to January 4, 2026. Additionally, an exhibition of his works will be organized as part of the photography biennial at the Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum in China from November 27, 2025, to January 31, 2026.
Born in Helsinki in 1945, Arno Rafael Minkkinen immigrated to the United States with his parents in 1951, settling in Finntown, Brooklyn, New York. He pursued studies in philosophy and theology at Wagner College before earning a bachelor's degree in English literature in 1967. Minkkinen began his professional career as an advertising copywriter on Madison Avenue, working notably for Minolta Camera and other national brands. In 1971, he created the slogan "What happens in your mind can happen in a camera," which reinforced his desire to become a photographer.
Minkkinen's path to photography began when he enrolled in a workshop with renowned photographer Diane Arbus, though the workshop never took place due to Arbus's death. John Benson stepped in as his mentor, guiding Minkkinen to find his own artistic voice. He was later admitted to the graduate program at the Rhode Island School of Design, where he studied photography under Harry Callahan and earned his Master of Fine Arts degree in 1974.
For Minkkinen, photography "reveals the invisible and invites us to see the world like a child." His work explores the relationship between the human body and nature without any subsequent manipulation of any kind. Bridging reality and fiction, he has reinvented the black-and-white self-portrait through graphic compositions in which the body becomes a tool for creating stunning visual constructions. Working alone, he creates his images through visual imagination and physical performance, rarely able to see what his camera has captured at the moment of exposure. In almost all his shoots, he serves as his own assistant.
Currently professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, Minkkinen began his teaching career 36 years ago in Finland (1974-76) at the Lahti Institute of Design and at Taideteolinen Korkeakoulu in Helsinki, now known as Aalto University. He subsequently held the position of adjunct professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for four years, where he organized the first comprehensive exhibition dedicated to Finnish photography in America. A second two-year stint at two Finnish schools (1984-1986) allowed him to organize an international exhibition dedicated to Finnish photography, held in 1986 at the Ancient Theater of Arles.
In 1992, Minkkinen was appointed deputy consultant for Septembre de la Photo (better known as Finnice), featuring an exhibition of 28 Finnish photographers throughout the French Riviera. To this day, Finnice remains one of the largest "exports" of Finnish art. His works are part of the collections at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the National Gallery of Finland, the Centre Pompidou, and the Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Tokyo, among dozens of other international institutions.
Minkkinen has received numerous distinctions throughout his career, including the Order of the Lion First Class in Finland (1992), the Finnish National Arts Prize in Photography (2006), the Lucie Award at Carnegie Hall (2013), a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship (2015), the Pro Finlandia Medal (2000), and the Honored Educator Award (2019) from the Society for Photographic Education (SPE). He currently lives with his wife Sandra, to whom he has been married for 56 years, at Fosters Pond, Massachusetts, and regularly travels to Finland, where he is making his debut as a screenwriter and filmmaker.
