©RALPH GOERTZ/IKS
Cologne Fine Art announced that photographer Candida Höfer has won this year’s Cologne Fine Art Prize, entitling her to €10,000, or about $11,250. Previous winners of the prize, which is awarded yearly to a Cologne-based artist, include Georg Baselitz, Sigmar Polke, and Thomas Schütte.
Höfer is best known for her large-form photographs of interiors, usually without any people in them. She rose to international fame about two decades ago, and, like her German colleagues Andreas Gursky and Thomas Struth, studied with the conceptual photographers Hilla and Bernd Becher. Höfer’s work is currently the subject of exhibitions at the Hermitage, in St. Petersburg, Russia, and at the Three Shadows Photography Art Centre, in Beijing.
The announcement that Höfer won this year’s prize comes a little under two months before the Cologne Fine Art fair’s opening. This year’s edition begins on November 18.