Celebrating Extraordinary Contributions to the Fields of Visual, Media and Literary Arts.
Maine Media’s biennial Visionary Award was established in 2019 to recognize and celebrate artists making extraordinary contributions to the fields of visual, media and literary arts.
The Visionary Awards are proudly sponsored by
Cig Harvey is a British-born artist and writer living in Maine, USA, and working in large-format color photography and poetry. Rich in implied narrative, saturated in color, and deeply rooted in the natural world, her work is devoted to the topic of what it is to feel.
Past Winners
Teju Cole
Teju Cole is a noted writer, photographer, and art critic. Formerly the photography critic at New York Times Magazine, he is currently the Gore Vidal Professor of the Practice of Creative Writing at Harvard. In his practice as a photographer, Cole maintains an extensive exhibition history both nationally and internationally.
In addition, he is the author of the essay collection, Known and Strange Things, as well as the novels Every Day Is for the Thief and Open City, the latter of which won the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Internationaler Literaturpreis, the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award for Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the New York City Book Award.
Joyce Tenneson
Internationally lauded as one of the leading photographers of her generation, Joyce Tenneson’s work has been published in books and major magazines, and exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide. Her portraits have appeared on covers for magazines such as: Time, Life, Newsweek, Premiere, Esquire and The New York Times Magazine.
Tenneson is the author of sixteen books including the best seller, Wise Women, which was featured in a six-part Today Show series. She is the recipient of many awards, including Fine Art Photographer of the Year in 2005 (Lucie Awards), and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Professional Photographers of America in 2012. In a poll conducted by American Photo Magazine, readers voted Tenneson among the ten most influential women in the history of photography.
Hear from artists and friends of Joyce Tenneson about her legacy, her vision, and her compassion.
Header image copyright Cig Harvey.