Jeppe Olof Wikström is a Swedish book publisher and photographer. He is also part owner of the publishing house Bokförlaget Max Ström in Stockholm. Wikström was project manager in 2009 for Peace! 100 Voices against Violence and War, which focused on educating young people about alternatives to violence between individuals and nations alike. The initiative coordinated a series of public school events and raised funding to produce a book that was distributed free of charge to all Swedish 16-year-olds. Wikström is co-founder of Expressions of Humankind Foundation and the director of the global photo project A Day in the World, where people all over the world took pictures of their everyday life on the same day.
Wikström fulfilled his compulsory military service in 1982-83 as a journalist with the armed forces newspaper Värnpliktsnytt. In 1986 he founded the image agency Skärgårdsbild, focussing on nature photography and the Stockholm archipelago. He started a sister company Äventyrsbild in 1989 to specialize in travel and adventure photography. The two agencies were acquired in 1991 by Pressens Bild, where Wikström became marketing director for the combined company. In this capacity, he has led the production of more than 150 photography books published by Max Ström. Together with Marika Stolpe, Wikström founded the publishing house Bokförlaget Max Ström in 1991, where he now works full-time as publisher.
Professional awards
In 2007, Wikström was awarded the :sv:S:t Eriksmedaljen|St. Eriks Medallion by the City of Stockholm for, as the citation read, “his meticulous and buoyant depictions of the capital city in photographs.” In 2010, Wikström was honored by Sweden's Princess Christina “for his contributions to building bridges between culture and the business community.” For their work with Peace! 100 Voices against Violence and War, Jeppe Wikström and writer Saam Kapadia shared the Eldh-Ekblad Peace Prize in 2010, the 50th anniversary of the award given annually by the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society. In 2012 he was by awarded with the Bellman Price by the City of Stockholm for his ”dedicated commitment to the art of photography”.
Nonprofit work
In 1995, Wikström founded Galleri Kontrast, then the largest photographic exhibition gallery in Sweden, under the auspices of the Press Photographers Club, a non-profit professional association. He has served on the boards of directors of the Lennart Nilsson Award for science photography and the Press Photographers Club. In 2010, Wikström was instrumental in establishing the international non-profit foundation, Expressions of Humankind, which supports scientific research and education centered on photographic images and the written word. In May 2011, the foundation announced the project .
Jeppe Wikström has been married since 1997 to author and publisher Marika Stolpe. The couple has two children: Nike and Vilhelm. The family lives in the town of Vaxholm in the Stockholm archipelago.
