The Johannes Vermeer Prize, the Dutch state prize for the arts, will be awarded this year to photographer Rineke Dijkstra. She will receive the prize on Thursday 29 October in the Ridderzaal in The Hague.
The jury unanimously nominated Dijkstra for her “iconic contribution to photography” and calls her the “queen of Dutch portraiture”.
The winner of the Johannes Vermeer Prize receives 100,000 euros and can spend the amount on a special project within his or her field of activity.
The Dutch government created the prize in 2009 to honor and encourage exceptional artistic talent. Previously, the award went to director Ivo van Hove, violinist Janine Jansen and photographer Erwin Olaf, among others.
Dijkstra, born in Sittard, worked as a freelance photographer for magazines such as Quote in SHE. Her work reflects abstract and universal subjects.
Her series of beach portraits of adolescents gained worldwide acclaim and added to the canon of photography.
She has organized several exhibitions in cities such as Paris, Amsterdam and San Francisco and has won several prizes, including the Kodak Award Netherlands and the Werner Mantz Prize. She was also the first Dutch photographer to win the Hasselblad Award. This award is regarded worldwide as the most important oeuvre prize for photographers.
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