‚Nobel Heroes‘: New Photographs of the 2018 Laureates

Since 2000, photo artist Peter Badge has been portraying all living Nobel Laureates as part of a joined project with the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings. Today, just a few weeks after the 2018 Nobel Prize Award Ceremony in Stockholm, we are pleased to present the new photographs of the recent laureates.

The long-running project ‚Nobel Laureates in Portrait‘ has taken photographer Peter Badge around the globe, creating an impressive collection of over 400 photographs of Nobel Laureates. Badge’s photos do not show the laureates primarily in their role as excellent scientists; what is artistically expressed by each individual black-and-white photograph is rather the image of a person in his or her very individual personality – this is what makes Badge’s photographs so unique.

James P. Allison and Tasuku Honjo, 2018 Nobel Laureates in Physiology or Medicine, © Peter Badge/typos 1 in coop. with Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings

Badge’s photographs have wandered around the world in recent years to be shown in various exhibitions. Most recently, in spring 2018, there was an exhibition at the Los Alamos History Museum, USA. In 2017, the world renowned German publisher Steidl produced an illustrated book with the portrait photographs of the laureates under the title ‚Nobel Heroes‘.

Immediately after the names of this year’s Nobel Laureates had been announced in the first week of October, Peter Badge set off again to get the laureates of the year 2018 in front of the camera. Today, we are pleased to present these new photographs.

Arthur Ashkin, Donna Strickland and Gérard Mourou, 2018 Nobel Laureates in Physics, © Peter Badge/typos 1 in coop. with Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings

Frances H. Arnold, Gregory P. Winter and George P. Smith, 2018 Nobel Laureates in Chemistry, © Peter Badge/typos 1 in coop. with Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings

The encounters with the award-winning scientists are far more than sober photo sessions; often enough, these encounters give unforgettable insights into the unique life story of a human. At the age of 96, Arthur Ashkin, laureate of the Nobel Prize in Physics, is the oldest person in the long history of the Nobel Prize who has ever been awarded with the prize. When Peter Badge and Marc Pachter, director emeritus of the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, visited Ashkin in his home in New Jersey, USA, the laureate has expressed great enthusiasm for the ideas of the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings and their goal of promoting intergenerational exchange between Nobel Laureates and young scientists from all over the world:

“The Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings make a great contribution by promoting dialogue between young scientists and Nobel Laureates. In my entire scientific career, beginning in the 1940s, mentorship was a critical element. I received guidance and inspiration from many scientists including Nobel Laureates like Hans Bethe. Now, at 96, as the oldest individual to be honoured with the Nobel Prize in its long history, I salute the Lindau tradition of connecting the generations and wish the meeting all the best for the future.”

Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad, 2018 Nobel Laureates in Peace, © Peter Badge/typos 1 in coop. with Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings

William D. Nordhaus and Paul M. Romer, 2018 Laureates in Economic Sciences, © Peter Badge/typos 1 in coop. with Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings

The Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings thank the Klaus Tschira Stiftung for their continuous project support. We are looking forward to the future collaboration and further impressive photo portraits of Nobel Laureates.