Professor of Fine Arts Anne Noble has been named one of five Arts Foundation laureates this year for her internationally acclaimed photography.

The laureates, worth $50,000 each, were announced at a function in Auckland tonight. Awarded for the past decade, they recognise senior New Zealand artists who have a track record of excellence in their work with the prospect of more exceptional work to come.

Professor Noble, from the College of Creative Arts, Wellington campus, was awarded the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to photography in 2003.

Two years ago, her series Ruby’s Room was selected by the Musee du Quai Branly in Paris as the keynote contemporary photography exhibition for the inaugural Paris PhotoQuai Biennale of Photography.

Professor Noble visited Antarctica in 2002 as part of the Artists to Antarctica scheme and returned there last year after winning a US National Science Foundation Artists and Writers Award. An exhibition of work from the Antarctic is showing at Bartley & Company Art in Wellington until November 28. In September she was awarded a Massey Research Medal for her individual research work.

The head of the College of Creative Arts, Professor Sally Morgan, says the laureate award is the premier prize for an artist in New Zealand, "probably equivalent to the Rutherford medal for scientists".

Other laureate award winners this year are carver Lyonel Grant, writer Witi Ihimaera, musician Chris Knox, and musician Richard Nunns.

Story and photo courtesy of Massey University