Author: ftnbooks

Bookseller, with an expertise in art books for over 45 years.
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A very special M.C. ESCHER book by the Fung Ping Shan Museum from 1994.

 

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It was 5 years ago that i discovered an Escher title that i never had encountered before.

escher fung a

This can be explained easily, because the publications was initiated by the Fung Ping Shan museum, which is now not only a museum but also a University and Art gallery in Hong Kong. Publication by this museum are rare and it is even more exceptional to encounter one of their publications in Europe. This is one of the smaller museums in the world and i do not know how they managed to get an Escher exhibition, but i suspect it was bought from Cordon Art. Cordon Art is the sole owner of the reproduction rights of the works by M.C Escher and probably has still the largest collection of original works by the artist. It was 1994 that this book was published and what strikes me most is that the reproduction and print quality is the best that was possible in those days. The book outshines other Escher publications from that era and is possibly the best that was published on the artist in the nineties. Escher is always present in the inventory of www.ftn-books.com , but this one is rare and probably a one time offer .

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Thomas Schütte (1954)… Two reasons to love.

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For me there are two personal reasons to love the works by Thomas Schütte. The first reason for me is his architectural art. Always trying to find a different approach to architecture makes his works interesting and in the same category as the architectural works by John Hejduk.

Secondly there is his publications. Meticulously designed books. Published by the best publishers, printed by the best printers and from start to finish typical Thomas Schütte productions. These books are among the best art books published in the last 50 years and i am proud to have some of them in my inventory of www.ftn-books.com

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Armando (1929) . …and the Armando Museum/ MOA museum

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At one time in the last decade there was a true Armando Museum in AMERSFOORT, but since a fire destroyed the museum in 2007 the largest part of the Armando collection had to be relocated and found a place in the MOA museum / Museum Oud Amelisweerd.

http://www.moa.nl/nl/Collections/Armando

and of course this great short documentary in the series HOLLANDSE MEESTERS which is an excellent portrait of thsi dutch master.

This site contains over 2100 works by Armando , which makes it the most important public place on the internet to view the works by Armando (Herman Dirk van Dodeweerd). You can spent some great time over there, but what it lacks is the story and the essential timeline on the works by Armando. No problem , because www.ftn-books.com has some great titles on Armando available at www.ftn-books.com to read and see whyArmando is such a great artist.

 

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Raymond Pettibon…. Brush Life (2002)

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In 2002 Raymond Pettibon made the opening exhibition for the GEM museum. The exhibition was curated by Roel Arkesteijn. Pettibon worked day and night to include over 600 drawings and designs, but he finished in time to make it a memorable exhibition. After the opening he had time to make and finish 3 comic books, which were printed ( copied ) and stapled “in house” by Chantal Sieuw. These 3 titles are since their publication date highly sought after and collectable Pettibon books , because the edition was only 100 copies for each title these are rare editions to any art collection.

The edition is numbered xx/100

The Brush Life blog is the third and final in the series on Pettibon’s GEM publications and because of its autobiographical character it is by far the most important one and has become rare and expensive. For more information please contact me . POA.

Artist / Author : Raymond Pettibon

Title : Brush Life

publisher : GEM, 2002

Number of pages : 28

Text language : English

Measurements: 8.7 x 5.6 inches

Condition: MINT

Highly recommended and collectable publication published on the occasion of the 2002 Pettibon opening exhibition of the GEM museum. Edition of only 100 copies. all numbered in red ink.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

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Cindy Sherman (1954). . the perfect selfie

 

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It wasn’t to difficult to find a good portrait of Cindy Sherman on Google, because every picture by Cindy Sherman features …Cindy Sherman. So before the craze of the selfie photography , Sherman already made “perfect” selfies, every time staged in a different setting.

She has become world famous with these photographs and had in the Netherlands on several occasions exhibitions, including the retrospective in the Boymans van Beuningen, which catalogue is available at www.ftn-books.com

One exception is that at one time in her career she wasn’t present in het photographs. In 1992 Sherman embarked on a series of photographs now referred to as “Sex Pictures.” For the first time, Sherman is entirely absent from these photographs. Instead, she again uses dolls and prosthetic body parts, this time posed in highly sexual poses. Prosthetic genitalia – both male and female – are used often and photographed in extreme close-up. Photographed exclusively in color, these photographs are meant to shock. Sherman continued to work on these photographs for some time and continued to experiment with the use of dolls and other replacements for what had previously been herself.

 

When i looked closely at these photographs i found a great resemblance with the POUPEE photographs by Hans Bellmer. I might be wrong, but because of this resemblance i find this series much less interesting than the photographs with Sherman in them.

 

 

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Marc Mendelson (1915-2013)

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Born in the UK, but worked and lived for most of his life in Belgium. He is considered to be part of the Cobra mouvement, but was not a participating member of the mouvement. Many people know his work without knowing that it is by Mendelson, because the mural in Brussel’s subwaystation “Parc” is by his hand. The development of his style and work is something special because he started as a figurative painter, became an abstract one and for the final part of his life he became a figurative painter again. Personally i stumbled upon his works , because at one time i could buy a large book on him in a remainder sale and became fascinated by his abstract works and maybe i can convince you with this blog too of his qualities as a painter and  to read something more about Mendelson after seeing these beautiful abstract paintings.

Books on Mendelson are available at www.ftn-books.com

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Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) ….L.H.O.O.Q.

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I did not know, but Marcel Duchamp’ s drawn moustache and beard on the Mona Lisa has a title;

L.H.O.O.Q.

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The poster with the drawn moustache and beard was recently sold at auction and i noticed the typical and absurd title Duchamp had given it. You can pronounce it as Look but it can also be the abbreviation of the french words  ” Elle a chaud au cul”…translation she is horny. Humor by Duchamp , who works are filled with this kind of “jokes”. Duchamps titles are available at www.ftn-books.com

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Lynn Chadwick (1914-2003) and Den Haag

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I know the Haags Gemeentemuseum has no sculpture by Lynn Chadwick, but what i did not know  is that there is a sculpture of a sitting couple on the Circusplein by Chadwick and when i read more about Chadwick i noticed that the gallery Nieuwenhuizen Segaar /had an exhibition in 1988 ( catalogue available at www.ftn-books.com) . So during a 40 year period there was a regular contact between the dutch art scene and Lynn Chadwick.

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Chadwick was an English artist known for his innovative bronze and steel sculptures of abstracted and expressive figures and animals. Chadwick’s method is considered unique in his choice not to sketch his sculpture beforehand, preferring instead to improvise and weld metal without a specific plan in place. He was born on November 24, 1914 in the London suburb of Barnes and studied as an apprentice architect under Roger Thomas, who would encourage him towards sculpture. Chadwick’s earliest sculptures were fragile mobiles constructed with balsa wood, copper, and brass, not unlike those of Alexander Calder. In 1950, he had his first major exhibition of his mobiles at Gimpel Fils gallery, which led to significant critical attention. The artist was then chosen to represent Britain at the 1956 Venice Biennale and was awarded its International Sculpture Prize, becoming its then-youngest recipient. He debuted his first steel sculpture, Two Winged Figures, for an outdoor show in 1962, and his works from this period are noted from their combination of abstract detail and natural forms. He was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1964 and a Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres in 1993. He died on April 25, 2003 in Gloucestershire, England.

 

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I love the works by Victor Pasmore (1908-1998)

 

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Victor Pasmore (1908 – 1998) was born in Chelsham, Surrey, the son of a well-known physician and mental specialist and an amateur painter. He was educated at Harrow School where he first became seriously interested in painting. Following the sudden death of his father he had to abandon his studies at the Central School of Arts and Crafts where he had studied under A. S. Hartrick, an artist who had worked in France and who knew van Gogh. Pasmore, who had expected to go Oxford and then on to The Slade School of Art, now had to find employment as a clerk in the Public Health Department in London instead, a job he held until 1937.

During this time he joined the London Artists’ Association and had his first solo exhibition at their Cooling Galleries on Bond Street in 1933. In 1937 Pasmore left the Public Health Department and formed an independent art school with fellow artists Claude Rogers, Graham Bell and William Coldstream in Fitzroy Street. The school’s first show in 1938 coincided with its move to 316 Euston Road which led to the art critic Raymond Mortimer to identify them as the Euston Road Group. Pasmore himself moved to a studio at 8 Fitzroy Street, formerly occupied by Sickert and Whistler, and spent his time teaching and painting.

Pasmore abandoned visual representation and developed a purely abstract style in 1947. His work, often in collage and construction of reliefs, pioneered the use of new materials and was sometimes on a large architectural scale. He held his first abstract solo exhibition at the Redfern Gallery, London, in 1948. Herbert Read, an important art critic of the time, described Pasmore’s new style as ‘The most revolutionary event in post-war British art’. In the summer of 1950 he visited St Ives where he became associated with Ben Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth and joined the Penwyth Society, the local exhibiting group. www.ftn-books.com has some nice Pasmore titles available.

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Joost Swarte and Fay Lovsky ….Jopo in Mono

 

Artist/ Author: Joost Swarte / Fay Lovsky Title : Jopo in Mono Publisher: Oog & Blik / de Harmonie, 1991 Number of pages: booklet contains 16 pages /audio cd by Fay Lovsky contains 12 numbers Text / Language: Measurements: 5.4x 4.9 inches Condition: mint / still sealed extra information on this item: Rare and collectible. Here is a text from a blog on this publication which i found: When putting two completely unique artists out of two different disciplines together in one room, the chance that it might lead to something brilliant is equal to the chance that it won’t work. For these two it turned out to be option one: brilliant. Joost Swarte and Fay Lovsky are the ones we’re talking about. These two (both made in Holland) made their album ‘Jopo In Mono’ back in 1991. It’s based on the story of Joost Swarte’s underground comic-character ‘Jopo de Pojo’, a musically anti-hero, highly underestimated in his own opinion (even the alleycats don’t dig his shit) but always pretty positive in his own misery. Jopo de Pojo leads a life of failure, fun, sex and pretty bad rock and roll. Nevertheless Jopo is a character to love. I bought my first Joost Swarte album somewhere around 1988, it was a collection comics about Jopo and I fell in love with him (Jopo) and his creator’s style immediately. More albums and (signed) silk-screens by Swarte followed and off-course this beautifully designed CD ‘Jopo In Mono’ had to be in my collection too. Nowadays Swarte enjoys an international reputation as a graphic artist as well as a designer on whatever his fancy takes away: creating posters, cartoons, glass windows and stamps, or designing watches, buildings or bookcases. The woman that made the music and wrote the lyrics to make Jopo come alive on CD is Fay Lovsky (born Fay Luyendijk). She is what you could call a ‘do-it-yourself’-artist. Always trying to make music with somewhat exotic instruments such as the theremin, ’singing’ saws or the noseflute (there is a ‘Duet For Noses’ on this Jopo-album!). In the mid-eighties she gained some fame with her music projects ‘La Bande Dessinée’ and with her bigband ‘Magnificent Seven’. But most (Dutch) people probably know her best because of her x-mas evergreen from 1981 ‘Christmas Was A Friend Of Mine‘. Lovsky is very inventive as well with music as with words. She’s responsible for probably one of the shortest and humourous bluessongs ever, ‘Yawn Blues‘ with brilliant lyrics: I woke up this morning, I went back to bed. The one you hear doing Jopo’s yawning is Joost Swarte. Another peak on this album is the song that even made it as the openingstune of a culinair show on French national TV: ‘Appellation Controlée‘ (part of the lyrics: Brown paper bag, au bord de la Seine, Ile de la Cité. Chateau Migraine, when you wake up the next day.). On the album followed by a disturbingly short ‘Appellation Non Controlee’ including hiccups and a watersplash. Did I already mention that Joost Swarte won a prize for the design of this booklet? Well, he did.

 

Jopo in Mono and the ROUSERS album are both available at www.ftn-books.com