Jip and Janneke’s 50th anniversary On 19 May, the Annie M.G. Schmidt day in 2003, Jip and Janneke’s 50th anniversary was celebrated. On 17 September 1952 the first story and the first drawing of the two children appeared on the children’s page of Het Parool. And in 1953 the first collection of stories was published by the Arbeiderspers. To celebrate the anniversary, a special anniversary album was published: '50 jaar Jip en Janneke'. The new book was based on the fifty best colour illustrations Fiep had made for the children’s magazine Bobo between 1976 and 1980, to go with the old stories by Annie. Querido publishers added an extra festive 
touch to the anniversary by reproducing and framing the fifty colourplates, so that fifty bookshops could hang the series in their shops for a week. Fiep attended the opening of the 
Anniversary Week at the Nieuwmarkt in Amsterdam; Job Cohen, the Mayor of Amsterdam, 
presented her with the first copy of the anniversary album.



Exhibition
On 13 September 2003 the retrospective of Fiep’s work called 'Getekend: Fiep Westendorp' was opened in the Kunsthal in Rotterdam by Hedy d’Ancona. Fiep was particularly impressed by the warmth of the audience which she felt during the opening. Initially she had been a little timid and insecure about the quality of her early works, but when she saw the portrait studies from her Academy years again, Fiep, who was always so modest, was very pleased with her work. ‘I shouldn’t say this of course, but actually I think it’s quite good…!’. It gave her a great deal of satisfaction to see the originals, many of which she had not seen for over thirty years.



The exhibition, organized by Gioia Smid, lasted until 12 January 2004 and attracted 65,000 visitors. About 400 children completed the treasure hunt which had been devised specially for the exhibition. Thirty children were later sent prizes as winners of the treasure hunt.



Biography
During the opening of the exhibition, Hedy d’Ancona presented Fiep with the first copy of the book 'Getekend: Fiep Westendorp' (edited by Gioia Smid and Aukje Holtrop). This book 
gives the first overview of the illustrator’s life and work. Fiep was absolutely delighted with the book and often spent time reading it and browsing through it.

Documentary
On 1 and 2 January 2004 the Dutch broadcasting corporation AVRO broadcast a 50-minute 
documentary with the title ‘Getekend: Fiep Westendorp’, compiled by Gioia Smid and Jessica Swinkels. The documentary shed light on Fiep’s childhood, her training and her hugely productive and active life as an illustrator. Gioia Smid interviewed Fiep Westendorp for this film several times in 2003, and these interviews were the basis of the documentary. The interviews were particularly special because throughout her life Fiep had only sporadically expressed herself in front of a camera.

Playful additional features were short animations of Floddertje and an outline of the stylistic 
development of the Jip and Janneke figures, shown in a visually attractive way. Interviews 
with the author Mies Bouhuys, with whom Fiep collaborated intensively up to her death, Jan 
Jutte (illustrator), Marcella Pleysier (editor-in-chief of the children’s magazine Bobo), and others illuminated various aspects of Fiep’s work. Kees Fens’s enthusiastic reactions to the 
illustrations and the discussion by Bram Kempers (Professor of the Sociology of Art) of the impact of the illustrations and their strength as trademarks gave the viewer greater insight into the importance and the beauty of Fiep Westendorp’s work.