The Jury 2025

The international jury of the Leica Oskar Barnack Award this year includes:

Jane Evelyn Atwood

Photographer (USA/France)

Jane Evelyn Atwood was born in New York and has been living in France since 1971. She prefers to work on long-term projects and is committed to people who are often ignored by society. She is the author of fifteen books, including Rue des Lombards, her first story on Parisian prostitutes, Pigalle People, the trans-genders of a red-light district in Paris, and Darya, a Ukrainian woman who cares for the elderly in Italy. Of particular significance, her Too Much Time, Women in Prison series represented a monumental ten-year undertaking, and remains a reference for female incarceration to this day. It earned her the 1997 Leica Oskar Barnack Award. Her latest book is Horses. Atwood has won many awards, including the W. Eugene Smith Award, the Alfred Eisenstaedt Award and the Ernst Haas Award. In 2022, the French Ministère de la Culture bestowed the title of Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres upon her.

Portrait © Nicola La Calzo

Cyril Drouhet

Deputy Director of Photography, Le Figaro Magazine (France)

Cyril Drouhet is a journalist as well as Deputy Director of Reporting and Photography at Le Figaro Magazine. He has worked at Le Figaro, one of France’s the main press groups, since 2004. He is also Exhibition Curator for La Gacilly Photo Festival, the largest, outdoor photography festival in France, which brings together more than 350,000 visitors each year. A former reporter, historian by training, member of numerous international juries and passionate about photojournalism, Drouhet has travelled to nearly 50 countries around the world. He was the Editorial Director of the Gamma news agency until 2002, and has written more than ten books.

Portrait © Frédéric Stucin

Felix Hoffmann

Artistic Director of Foto Arsenal Vienna (Austria)

Felix Hoffmann is an arts and culture scientist and Artistic Director of the Foto Arsenal Vienna, the photography and lens-based media centre founded by the City of Vienna and opened in 2025. From 2005 to 2022, he was Head of Programmes at the C/O Berlin Foundation, responsible for exhibitions, programmes and strategy. He co-initiated the C/O Berlin Talent Programme for young photographers and art critics, and has curated numerous international exhibitions, including Nan Goldin (2009), Robert Mapplethorpe (2011), Peter Lindbergh (2011), Gordon Parks (2014), Elfie Semotan (2019), Mari Katayama (2023), as well as group exhibitions, such as The Uncanny Familiar – Images of Terror (2011), The Last Image. Photography and Death (2019) and Send Me an Image. From Postcards to Social Media (2021).

Portrait: © Michael Dooney

Curt Holtz

Editor-in-Chief for Photography and Architecture at Prestel Publishing (Germany)

Curt Holtz is Editor-in-Chief for Photography and Architecture at Prestel Publishing, which is part of Penguin Random House. He has a long-standing interest in both documentary and portrait photography and has published numerous monographs by renowned artists and authors, including Gerry Badger, Devendra Banhart, Charlotte Cotton, David Goldblatt, Pieter Hugo, Michael Kenna, Tyler Mitchell, Daido Moriyama, Zanele Muholi, Phillip Prodger, and Viviane Sassen. Originally from Johannesburg, South Africa, Holtz currently lives in Munich, Germany.

Karin Rehn-Kaufmann

Art Director and General Representative Leica Galleries International (Austria)

Karin Rehn-Kaufmann studied German and Philosophy at the University of Freiburg. She also obtained her diploma at the Eurythmischen Hochschule in Stuttgart, where she subsequently worked as a lecturer from 1982 to 1986. After the Salzburg-based, Austrian Capital Management Project Development GmbH joined Leica Camera AG in 2005, her long-standing passion for photography manifested itself in 2008 with the opening of the Leica Gallery Salzburg. Today, Karin Rehn-Kaufmann acts as Art Director and General Representative Leica Galleries International and manages the 28 Leica Galleries worldwide. She has successfully curated numerous important photo exhibitions, such as the China Flight project with spectacular aerial photographs from the 1930s, exhibition concepts for the Leica Gallery as part of Photokina 2012, 2014 and 2016, and the exhibition 10×10 on the occasion of the 100 years of Leica Photography anniversary. She is responsible for the Ernst Leitz Museum in Wetzlar and curated the exhibitions of photographers such as Bryan Adams, Werner Bischof, Joseph Koudelka, Thomas Hoepker, Steve McCurry, Rankin and Andy Summers.

Karin Rehn-Kaufmann has been a Leica Oskar Barnack Award jury member since 2008 and has played a key role in shaping and developing the prestigious photography prize. She is the publisher of the 40 Years of the Leica Oskar Barnack Award catalogue, as well as curator of the exhibition of the same name and the annual LOBA presentations at the Ernst Leitz Museum.