William Kentridge received the Kyoto Prize

With the Kyoto Prize the Inamori Foundation is honouring the life work of personalities who have made a significant contribution in their respective fields.

The South African artist William Kentridge is receiving the award in the category of Arts and Philosophy for creating his own original art of mixing traditional drawings with animation and other media. In the late 1980s he started production of his special animation films in which he reflected the history and social circumstances of South Africa.

The award-winner in the category of Basic Sciences is the Hungarian mathematician Dr László Lovász, who is being honoured for his successes in the field of the discrete optimization algorithm. He has been able to make outstanding contributions to promoting both the academic and technological possibilities of the mathematical sciences.

In the category of Advanced Technology, the Inamori Foundation is honouring the Japanese physician Dr Shinya Yamanaka. He is receiving the Kyoto Prize for his stem cell research. Dr Shinya Yamanaka and his team reprogrammed cells so that they resembled embryonic stem cells in the way they behave.

This year’s Kyoto Prize is already the 26th time that personalities who have made special contributions to the further development of sciences and arts are honoured in this way. Other recipients of the prize in previous years include the German choreographer Pina Bausch, philosopher Jürgen Habermas, Japanese designer Issey Miyake, musician and conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt, artists Maurice Béjart and Roy Lichtenstein as well as primate researcher Jane Goodall.

_{Images: © Inamori Foundation 2010}

_{Copy: free of charge, Kyocera Fineceramics GmbH requests specimen copy}