We are delighted to announce Keisha Scarville as the winner of our inaugural Saltzman Prize. The Saltzman Prize recognizes extraordinary achievement by an emerging photographer, one whose work has recently gained visibility and whose voice adds new perspectives to the discussion around photography and visual culture. Scarville will receive a $10,000 award, and a solo exhibition of her work at CPW in 2025.
Keisha Scarville makes photographs that explore the elusiveness of cultural identity, transformation, and loss. Born in Brooklyn to Guyanese parents who had emigrated to New York in the 1960s, Scarville’s experience of growing up as a first-generation American was defined by a sense of in-betweeness. Her Passport series (2012–ongoing), for example, alludes directly to immigration, using dozens of identical black-and-white passport photographs of her father that have been painted, collaged, or scratched. These small works offer a wry commentary on the shifting status of immigrants, and on place, longing, invisibility, and censorship. In her series Mama’s Clothes (2015-ongoing), Scarville created portraits using her dead mother’s clothing, exploring the collaboration between absence and landscape to foster a space that enables the reemergence of her mother’s presence through her own body and identity. Her book, lick of tongue, rub of finger, on soft wound (Mack Books), was shortlisted for the prestigious Aperture-Paris PhotoBook Awards in 2023.
Scarville was a participant in the CPW artist residency Woodstock AIR in 2003. In accepting the Saltzman Prize, Scarville said, “I am deeply honored to be the recipient of the inaugural Saltzman Award. CPW holds such a significant place in my development and journey as an image maker, and I feel immense gratitude to be part of such a rich and brilliant legacy.”
Scarville was chosen by a jury consisting of Dr. Deborah Willis, University Professor and Chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University; Susan Meiselas, photographer and President of the Magnum Foundation; and Yasufumi Nakamori, Director, Asia Society Museum, New York.
About the Saltzman Prize
The Saltzman Prize is awarded annually by the Saltzman Family Foundation, and was conceived by CPW Trustee Lisa Saltzman. The prize pays tribute to Ralph and Muriel Saltzman, both passionate collectors, passionate art patrons, and art philanthropists. Ralph Saltzman’s company, Designtex, founded 60 years ago, is now a leader in the the design, corporate, and government sectors for sustainable textiles, wallcoverings, and applied materials. Its first product was a flame-retardant drapery knit called Varel, for the Seagram Building on Fifth Avenue. Saltzman himself, a Bronx native and graduate of New York University, credited his family with the success of Designtex, once noting, “My wife typed sample cards, describing the fabric and my mother, grandmother, and her sister stapled sample tickets at the kitchen table.” His curiosity and collaborative spirit live on in the legacy of innovation he left behind. Via Designtex, the partnership that emerged between William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart, won First Prize in the International Design Sense competition at the Design Museum in 2000.
Keisha Scarville weaves together themes of transformation, place, latencies, and the elusive body. Her work has been exhibited at the Studio Museum of Harlem; ICA Philadelphia; The Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute; and The Brooklyn Museum of Art, among other organizations. She has participated in artist residences at Vermont Studio Center, Lightwork, LMCC Workspace, Stoneleaf, Baxter Street CCNY, BRIC Workspace, Center for Photography at Woodstock, and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Her work has appeared in publications including Transition, Nueva Luz, Small Axe, Hyperallergic, and The New York Times. She is the recipient of the 2023 Creator Lab Photo Fund and her book lick of tongue rub of finger on soft wound was shortlisted for the 2023 Aperture-Paris PhotoBook Awards. She teaches at the International Center of Photography and Parsons School of Design in New York.