Category: antiquarian books

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Jiří Georg Dokoupil (1954)

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We are from the dame generation and perhaps that is why i appreciate Dokoupil’s painting. Always extremely colorful and becoming more and more abstract.

The association is one of “stained glass” and i would not be surprised that in the end of his career he will be invited to make some church windows ( btw. Marc Mulders made some for the Chapel in the Gouda Museum). It takes some time to get  accustomed to the art of Dokoupil, but once you get know his paintings you only can admire them. Fled to Germany from Tsjechoslovakia in 1968, he soon joined the Mulheimer Freiheit group and participated in performances and group exhibitions together with Dahn and Adamski. In the Nethertlands he had his “one man” exhibitions at the iconic galerie Riekje Swart and became part of the exhibitions organized on the NEUE WILDEN by Frans Haks in the Groninger Museum and the Centraal Museum Utrecht. From these early days on his art developed into an abstract kind of art which is personal and typical for Dokoupil. An artist to keep following and see what his next step in art will be .

There are some Dokoupil publications available at www.ftn-books.com

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Richard Artschwager (1924-2013)

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Richard Artschwager started working in the 1960s exclusively as a freelance artist, having completed a science degree and after many years as owner of a furniture workshop. His oeuvre encompassed many style directions: the reduced and clear forms of his objects and paintings reflect minimalism whilst his use of industrially made materials such as Resopal and Celotex take up an element of Pop Art, and his ‘Blps’ mechanisms deploy ideas of conceptual art.  This work by Artschwager reminded me of Fons Haagmans who does in some way the same. But where Artschwager tends to become a minimal artist. Haagmans stay’s always far from it and in his form language you always can recognize reality.

 

Artschwager’s first solo exhibition was in 1965 at the legendary Leo Castelli Gallery in New York. The most comprehensive retrospective of his complete work up till now was opened in 2012 at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, moving on to the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2013), and the Haus der Kunst, Munchen and the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco in 2014.

www.ftn-books.com has some excellent Artschwager titles available.

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Adolphe Monticelli ( 1824-1886) and Benno Wissing

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Why a blog on Monticelli? Two simple reasons. Monticelli was one of the great inspiration sources for the Impressionists and specially Vincent van Gogh was a great admirer and because of this connection two of the large museums in the Netherlands held exhibitions in the Fifties and Sixties. The Boymans van Beuningen was one of them and held a retrospective exhibition in 1959 of which the catalogue is available at www.ftn-books.com

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It is this appreciation of Monticelli’s art and the connection with van Gogh that some of the museums over here have Monticelli’s in their collections. I know that Kroller Muller, Gemeentemuseum, Boymans and the Stedelijk all have Monticelli’s in their collections. Personally i think it is time again for a re appreciation of this great painter who’s works are timeless and in so many cases a source of inspiration for the Impressionists. I started this blog on Monticelli because today i bought a poster for the 1959 Boymans exhibitions. It is in excellent B- condition and i consider this to be one of the best Benno Wissing made for the Boymans museum during the Fifties.

MONTICELLI aa

 

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Frank Stella and his 1970 exhibitions

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Frank Stella became a celebrity in the early Seventies in Europe , where exhibitions were being organized all over Europe. Among them, his exhibitions in Zurich and Amsterdam where on both occasion were his V series exhibited. The difference?…. in Zurich these works were for sale and in Amsterdam they only were on show, but what makes thgis exhibition fro me more special is that with the exhibition a wonderful Wim Crouwel designed catalogue was published .

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The catalogue was published with a relief cover and this made it a true artist book as for an invitation…. they decide to use the shape of the 1960 Newstead Abbey painting to make the event even more special. In contrast the Zurich exhibition at the galerie Renee Ziegler had only an invitation with a special silkscreened V series pattern on the card ( but this is also very beautiful;-) 1970 was an important year for Frank Stella and www.ftn-books.com is lucky to have all three discussed items now in its inventory.

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Claes Oldenburg recent additions from the 60’s and 70’s

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When at auction, i noticed a “lot” with early Oldenburg publications . Most from the sixties an all from renowned galleries like Sonnabend, Sidney Janis and the Margot Leavin gallery. His works do always mean something special to me , because of their scale they instantly impress and make you want to touch these beautiful works. Still the best way to make yourself familiar with these works is to study them out of a book, because of their extremely large size you must travel a lot to get a great overview of the most famous Oldenburg sculptures. It is easier to buy some classic Oldenburg books at www.ftn-books.com

and to make it easier ….use the code : Oldenburg for a 10% discount on all items listed on FTN books this week ( 12/11/18 – 12/18/18)

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William Turnbull (1922-2012)

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In some ways the stone sculptures of William Turn bull remind of the ones i saw last year by the late Joost Barbiers. Rough pieces of stone, worked over in a way that a different object is created and which blends with its surroundings.

( above right is by Barbiers)

But where Turnbull developed his art into a colorful and sometimes joyful abstract modern art. Barbiers stayed sombre and kept working over the rough pieces of stone. Both i appreciate but in the longterm i would like to have an original Barbiers only for the outside and place it in the garden and let it blend with nature, whereas an original Turnbull would be admired and cherished inside the house and becoming an important part of the collection of Modern Art.

In 1952, he was included in the Young Sculptors exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) which had become the focal point for new art in London. Turnbull, along with Paolozzi ( a colleague and fellow art student)and Richard Hamilton and others, became a member of the Independent Group, a splinter group within the ICA which became an important forum for discussion and debate. The Independent Group has been cited as a progenitor of Pop Art, but soon after Turnbull was far from being another British Pop Art artist, going his own way and developing an art and style of his own.

Unknowingly Turnbull must have had a great influence on another dutch painter. Willem Hussem must have been inspired by Turnbull’s paintings since some of his compositions use the same patterns and colors.

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There are some nice early William Turnbull publications available at www.ftn-books.com

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Hans Hartung (1904-1989)

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One of the exhibitions i thought to be one of the very best during the time i was working at the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, was one curated by Franz Kaiser on the abstract artist Hans Hartung . Just one word describes the exhibition….impressive.

It showed that the art Hartung created was not just random, but a well thought over creation of abstract art in which a small sketch was turned into a large painting.

Here is the text on the exhibition:

Hans Hartung (b. Dresden, 1904) was regarded as one of the founding fathers of French Lyric Abstractionism, the European counterpart of American Abstract Expressionism: a term in which the word Expressionism refers to an extremely physical and spontaneous manner of painting. The members of the movement wanted, as it were, to work out their emotions on the canvas without any form of symbolism.

Hartung’s paintings displayed a plain ground covered with rough and apparently spontaneous brushwork, with all the paint spatters and brush marks that go with that way of painting. After his death, therefore, people were astounded when the study of unfinished pictures revealed that his paintings had not in fact been created in a wild and spontaneous way, but by carefully filling in predetermined outlines based in every detail, right down to the smallest flecks of paint, on sketches prepared in advance. This exhibition, which the Gemeentemuseum is holding to mark the hundredth anniversary of Hartung’s birth, reveals an artist who would better be described as a conceptual artist, were it not for the fact that conceptual art did not exist as a movement when he produced his works. In this first Dutch retrospective of Hans Hartung’s work, early drawings are presented next to the equivalent paintings, and early versions alongside later versions. The similarities in terms of motif are astonishing.

More about Hans Hartung: www.fondationhartungbergman.fr

There are some nice publications on Hartung available at www.ftn-books.com

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Edgar Fernhout (1912-1974)

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Edgar Fernhout comes from an interesting background. His grandfather was Jan Toorop and his mother Charley Toorop. This meant he was raised among artists and writers. An inspiring surroundings in which art took centre stage. He specially moved to Bergen after the divorce of his mother , where his grandfather has built the house/studio de VLERKEN specially for the family of his daughter to raise her children and create her own works of art. The interesting part of Fernhout for me personally was his transition from realism into abstract art. Fernhout being one of the first in the Netherland together with M0ndrian to discover abstract art as a genre.

the other aspect i like of his history is that when he received his first large museum presentation in the Netherlands at the van Abbemuseum , the catalogue with exhibition was designed by Wim Crouwel. This being one of the first publications he made for a large museum in the Netherlands. This catalogue is of course available at www.ftn-books.com

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Minimal Art at the Haags Gemeentemuseum

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It was in the early Eighties that i learned of the Minimal Art collection and history of the Haags Gemeentemuseum.

Crucial for the collection was the interest of almost all modern art curators in Minimal Art. Starting with Enno Develing who introduced the key artists of the Minimal Art scene for the first time in a large exhibition in 1968. Among them Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, Carl Andre and of course Sol LeWitt. Many of them would receive solo prentations in the years to follow, but this first time was a breakthrough for Minimal Art. The catalogue is arare book nowadays and i am lucky to have a copy for sale at www.ftn-books.com

After this first exhibition many exhibitions would follow. Enno Develing, Flip Bool, Rudi Fuchs and Franz Kaiser all took an interest in Minimal Art and because of this interest , exhibitions with LeWitt, Andre and Judd were organized in the decades after this first  1968 Minimal Art exhibition. I doubt that none was as important as this very first one, because after this first one Minimal Art was established as an art form, but another aspect that makes this first ( Develing ) exhibition important is that the relationship between the Gemeentemuseum and these artist was not only an artistic one.  The museum and its curators became friends with practically all Minimal Art artists, resulting in an ever growing collection of Minimal Art.

There is a nice link to a tribute to Sol LeWitt to be found over here:

http://www.gem-online.nl/files/media/gem/2016/sol_lewitt._a_tribute/ebook_sollewitt_web.pdf

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Carel Blazer (1911-1980)

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A great dutch photographer who is known for his Fifties and Sixties photography , but also for his active part in the resistance during WWII.

Some interesting periods during the life of Blazer made him a true international photographer.

After been educated at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Zurich, he soon after travelled Spain to photograph the Civil war. After that period he travelled Italy and visited Rome to photograph this city which photographs were published in a book by Contact. Later there were travels to Asia and Sicily. On both occasions series of photographs were taken and published.

Willem Sandberg took an interest in these photographs and presented a selection at an exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum which catalogue is available at www.ftnbooks.com

There are many titles which have these breathtaking Blazer photographs in them, so beside the ones that i have in my shop please locate 50’s and 60’s books at bookmarkets and look into the colofon to discover if photographs by Blazer are included.

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