Samuel Fosso (b. 1962, Kumba, Cameroon) has been announced the 2023 winner of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize, selected from a shortlist of four artists including Bieke Depoorter, Arthur Jafa and Frida Orupabo.
Fosso was awarded for his 2021 exhibition Samuel Fosso at Paris’s Maison Européenne de la Photographie. Raised in Nigeria, Fosso fled the Nigerian Civil War (1967–70) as a child and first emerged as a commercial photographer in the Central African Republic, opening his first photography studio at the age of thirteen. Fosso’s works, often self portraits, draw upon the West African tradition of studio portraiture, which were repurposed to negotiate social archetypes, historical figures and new identities.
The prize awards £30,000 to Fosso, who features in an exhibition dedicated to the four shortlisted artists, on view at The Photographers’ Gallery in London through 11 June.
