2026 Inge Morath Award

The Magnum Foundation and the Inge Morath Estate offer a $7,500 grant to a woman or nonbinary photographer under 30 for a long-term documentary project, with a $1,000 grant for a finalist.

Overview

Magnum Foundation is accepting applications for the Inge Morath Award, a grant given to a woman or nonbinary photographer under the age of 30 to support the completion of a long-term documentary project.

Inge Morath was an Austrian-born photographer who was associated with Magnum Photos for nearly fifty years. After her death in 2002, the Inge Morath Foundation was established with a limited-term mission to manage Morath’s estate and facilitate the study and appreciation of her contribution to photography. With the closure of the research space in 2014, Inge’s archive was acquired by the Beinecke Library at Yale University, and a set of Morath’s master prints by the Yale University Art Gallery, where they are now available to scholars.

Because Morath devoted much of her enthusiasm to encouraging women photographers, her colleagues at Magnum Photos established the Inge Morath Award in her honor. The award is administered by the Magnum Foundation as part of its mission to expand creativity and diversity in documentary photography, in cooperation with the Inge Morath Estate. For more about Morath’s enduring endurance and influence in a male-dominated industry, read Sumeja Tulic’s piece in the British Journal of Photography in honor of the award’s 20th anniversary.

Practical Info

The Award is open to any photographer who identifies as a woman or nonbinary. Photographers represented by Magnum Photos and their immediate relatives are not eligible. Employees and members of the Magnum Foundation, Magnum Photos, and Inge Morath Estate are ineligible to apply for this grant.

Submissions must include personal details, a resume, a one-sentence project description, a project description describing the existing project the applicant is working on and how the grant will be used to complete the work, a set of 15-20 sequenced photographs from the current project, images captions, and optional supplemental material.

The selected recipient will receive a grant of $7,500, and one finalist will also receive a $1,000 grant in support of their project.

The jury is composed of Magnum Photos members, the Inge Morath Estate, and the Executive Director of the Magnum Foundation. The recipient and finalist of the Inge Morath Award will be announced between July and August.

About Magnum Foundation

Magnum Foundation is a nonprofit organization that expands creativity and diversity in documentary photography, activating new audiences and ideas through the innovative use of images. Through grant making and mentorship, Magnum Foundation supports a global network of social justice and human rights-focused photographers and experiments with new models for storytelling.

Founded in 2007 by members of the Magnum Photos cooperative, Magnum Foundation was created to sustain independent visual storytelling on social issues. Since then, Magnum Foundation has made more than 250 direct grants to visual storytellers. Through production funds and project development assistance, we support both emerging and recognized artists at various stages of their processes.

About Inge Morath Estate

The Inge Morath Foundation (former non-profit) was established in 2003 to facilitate the study and appreciation of Inge Morath’s contribution to photography. The Foundation served as a public resource for the international community of scholars and curators, as well as general audiences interested in Morath’s work, and supported work in three program areas: Grants and Awards; Educational Programs; and Traveling Exhibitions.