Guler could not attend the awards ceremony as he had health problems.
Another Turkish photographer, Sarkis Baharoglu, received the award on behalf of Guler.
Ara Guler was born in Istanbul in 1928. The most important living representative of creative photography in Turkey today, he has a well-established international reputation. He began a career in journalism with the newspaper Yeni Istanbul in 1950. He became a photojournalist for Time-Life in 1956 and for Paris Match and Stern in 1958. Around the same time, he joined the Magnum Agency. In the British Journal of Photography Year Book published in the UK in 1968, Guler was named one of the seven best photographers in the world. In 1962, he received the 'Master of Leica' award in Germany. Guler has held hundreds of exhibitions of his work all over the world. He has also interviewed and photographed numerous celebrities ranging from Bertrand Russell and Winston Churchill to Arnold Toynbee, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali.
Many examples of Ara Guler's photographic work are to be found in institutions such as the French National Library in Paris and the Sheldon Collection at Nebraska University as well as in private collections in Boston, Chicago and New York. His photographs are also on display at the Ludwig Museum and at Das Imaginare Photo-Museum, both in Cologne.
Based in Los Angeles, the Lucie Foundation was established to provide support to the photography sector in the world. The foundation provides scholarships to young photographers and organizes workshops on photography. Ara Guler was the first Turk to receive an award from the Lucie Foundation.
