Tim Killiam Prize 2025
‘For the third edition of the Tim Killiam Prize, the jury selected an artist whose depictions of her city are highly idiosyncratic and consistent, and which therefore invite us to look at our city of Amsterdam through different eyes.’
The jury announced Janneke Viegers as winner of the third edition of the prize. The prize is an initiative of the Tim Killiam Foundation, which manages the estate of the architect, illustrator and photographer it was named after. Tim Killiam (1947-2014) became known as the creator and publisher of the Amsterdam Canal Guide.
This annual award includes a cash prize of €15,000 and is intended for visual artists who make an original or valuable contribution to the image of Amsterdam. During the exhibition linked to the prize, works by Viegers can be seen in the Grachtenmuseum as of 3 April.
From the jury report: ‘At a time when Google Maps and Google Earth lets us zoom into every detail, Janneke Viegers brings mystery to our image of the city.’
Viegers began work on Exteriors, the series of paintings cited by the jury, before Google Maps even existed. It consists of large 2 x 2 m. canvases in which Viegers pictures the city from above in bird’s-eye view, as a drone would capture it today. They offer an original view of the city.
Whereas the previous winners of the Tim Killiam Prize, Arie Schippers and Chad Bilyeu, depicted the frayed outskirts of the city and the medieval city centre respectively, Janneke Viegers chose the entire city as her subject (including such places as the Rembrandt Tower and Schiphol) and to depict it from a bird’s-eye view. It gives Viegers a sense of overview: ‘the city is yours’. She paints these canvases with her fingers wrapped in thin gloves – a technique she developed herself. The result is a series of impressions of the city, which appear both highly precise and impressionistic at the same time.
Janneke Viegers (1952) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Arnhem – later teaching there – and at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. She has been living and working in Amsterdam since 1990. Viegers initially made a large number of portraits and smaller works and from the 1990s onwards, with the series Exteriors, she also created large-format canvases. Her impressive oeuvre of over 2,500 works can be found in public and private collections all over the world.
The Tim Killiam Prize 2025 will be awarded on 3 April in the Grachtenmuseum during the opening of the exhibition. The exhibition will run until 6 July 2025.
Photo: Kaoru Yamamoto