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Classic catalogues part 1 …..Picasso

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The second day for the extra focus on the classics within the inventory of www.ftn-books.com

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This time it is Picasso. Although i personally am not a great fan of Picasso, there are so many others that admire this Spanish artist and for them …take notice that this is the last day that the discount code is valid. Not only the many publicatons on Picasso are sold with a discount of 10%, but all publications and specials within the inventory go with a discount.

use : CLASSIC10 at your checkout and receive the discount.

 

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Giovanni Nicolai (continued)

Next June 2018 the former students of the Art Academy in Bari will have their yearly show. Among them is is Giovanni Nicolai to whom i devoted a blog about a year ago. You never know when you are going to visit the beautiful Bari region, but keep in mind that beside  great olive oil , food and some wines there is also some modern art to see.

Giovanni Nicolai will be among them with some exquisite paintings and drawings, which show his strength. Portraits of elegant gentleman, classic Italian profiles and great technique make these stand out from the others. A baroque artist in nowadays Italian art scene is rare and for those who like Italian art, these works are well worth to check out.

The second exhibition in which Giovanni will have  a presence is in the SO art gallery in Milano. If i have more information on both exhibitions i will let my readers know.

here is the first link to the exhibition:

IMPRINTING (EX ArcheoModernitas) Una Rivista una Mostra

 

http://www.exstudentiaccademiabellearti.com

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Peter Blake (1932) … a British Pop-Art artist

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Peter Blake is known by the dutch art lovers as one of the first Pop Art artist who had the opportunity to exhibit at the Stedelijk Museum, Together with this exhibition an excellent catalogue designed by Wim Crouwel was published , bu apart from that his work is becoming more and more important every year. The same with Paolozzi works , this Pop Art is original and authentic and where it was almost forgotten 30 years ago it is now considered among the best art from the 60’s.

Without knowing, many people have admired Peter Blake’s works and are familiar with it . This, because he was the painter and designer of the Beatles Sgt Pepper  album. He even made a second version for Liverpool being cultural capital of Europe in 2008.

In the original 1967 work, the Beatles form the centrepiece wearing colourful military-style outfits while their wax models also feature. However, in the 2012 piece, the faces of Ringo Starr and the late John Lennon and George Harrison have all been omitted.

And even Sir Paul McCartney has been relegated to the third row – one behind his daughters Stella, the fashion designer, and Mary, the photographer. Blake, known as the Godfather of Pop Art, has put his own face and images of his family where the Fab Four once stood.

Blake painted several album sleeves. He designed the sleeve for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band with his wife Jann Haworth, the American-born artist whom he married in 1963 and divorced in 1979. The Sgt. Pepper’s sleeve has become an iconic work of pop art, much imitated and Blake’s best-known work. Producing the collage necessitated the construction of a set with cut-out photographs and objects, such as flowers, centred on a drum (sold in auction in 2008) with the title of the album. Blake has subsequently complained about the one-off fee he received for the design (£200[5][6]), with no subsequent royalties. Blake made sleeves for the Band Aid single, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” (1984), Paul Weller’s Stanley Road (1995) and the Ian Dury tribute album Brand New Boots and Panties (2001; Blake was Dury’s tutor at the Royal College of Art in the mid-60s). He designed the sleeves for Pentangle’s Sweet Child and The Who’s Face Dances (1981), which features portraits of the band by a number of artists.

There are some excellent publications on Blake available at www.ftn-books.com

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Ernst van Leyden (1892-1962) … a forgotten painter

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Undeservedly forgotten by most and rarely presented nowadays in exhibitions and gallery presentations. The story of van Leyden is that he fortunately had a loyal group of admirers and collectors, but after trying to give him back his popularity with an exhibition around 2008, it is again complete silence.

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Van Leyden was an extremely productive and versatile artist, hugely inspired by his numerous travels: his use of warm colors, striking compositions, and strong rendition – whether figurative or abstract – of people, animals, objects and landscapes made him a thoroughly appreciated artist within a circle of peers and friends to which Picasso, Salvador Dali and Willem de Kooning belonged as well.

It just took a look at a recently acquired catalogue on van Leyden from 1964 and it oozes with quality.  Rotella, Villegle and others using the art of collage must have been inspired by van Leyden. Who dares …who presents this great artist again and gives him the stage in Modern Art he deserves to have?

www.ftn-books.com has the Stedelijk Museum and galerie Anderson -Meyer catalogues available for sale.

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Villa Henny (1919) by Robert van ‘t Hoff

There is DE STIJL in the Netherlands , Arts, poetry and architecture were all executed along linear ways. Where Mondrian used the rectangle. Robert van ‘t Hoff exeuted his architectural along the same disciplines as the other artist of the DE STIJL group. It shows…. a little bit inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright this is one of the best dutch early architectural designs there is. The Rietveld Schroder Huis in Utrecht is more DE STIJL, but this one is far more beautiful. There are publications on DE STIJL and Rietveld available at www.ftn-books.com and since a few weeks there is the classic building cardboard kit by Piet Vollaard available too. Published by Uitgeverij 010 in the mid eighties this is a highly collectable item.

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Aristide Maillol (1861-1944)

 

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If ever i had to chose two great sculptors from France , for me personally it would be Camille Claudel and Aristide Maillol. Rodin is a great sculptor , but i find his sculptures/statues to classic. He is a craftsman but for me he lacks the personal touch that i encounter with Maillol and Claudel. I have been admiring daily for 25 years a great statue by Maillol which is in the collection of the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag and i found it never boring.

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This is the reason that i am always on the look out for publications on Maillol and finally i found another great one at our local bookmarket . It is the spectacular Paul Rosenberg catalogue for his sales exhibition of sculptures by Maillol from 1958. It is now available at www.ftn-books.com together with excellent Sandberg designed catalogue from the 1962 exhibition which was held at the Stedelijk Museum.

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Proost Prikkels 251 / Ontwerpers GKf

For those working in the printing business, these Proost Prikkels are possible known publications. for the others ….most people do not know them. Proost Prikkels are the publicity prestigious prints by Proost & Brandt paper. There are over 400 of these publications. They appeared irregularly ( between 1936 and the mid eighties), but were always of the highest quality and in most cases related to paper, design and typography. www.ftn-books.com has acquired over 100 numbers of these prestigious publications. Most of them were published between 1960 and 1980. Please mail me the numbers you are looking for and perhaps i have it available among the numbers i acquired. Here are some examples of these Proost Prikkels. the no. 251 is a jubilee publication ( no. 250 was skipped) and contains notecards of 79 dutch designers.

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Gottfried Honegger (1917-2016)

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Nearly 100 years , Gottfried Honegger died at the age of 98 in 2016 and left us a beautiful ouevre of Geometric and constructivist art.

was a Swiss artist and graphic designer. He was married to the Swiss illustrator Warja Lavater. He studied shop-window display at the Zurich Kunstgewerbeschule and taught there from 1948. His early work was commercial graphic design.

From 1955-1958 he was art director at Geigy. He lived in New York City between 1958 and 1960, and held his first exhibition there. In 1961 he moved to Paris and concentrated on painting, which concentrated on exacting explorations of circles and squares,[4] and (from 1968), sculpture.

Honegger also spent time in Dallas, Texas as the artist in residence at the University of Dallas. Honegger died at his home in Zürich, Switzerland from a short-illness on 17 January 2016, aged 98. The first time i heard of this artist when i acquired a beautiful series of books which included 2 special prints by Honegger. The first artist i thought of was Ellsworth Kelly, but no this was for me an unknown Swiss artist who had the same quality as Kelly only only a much smaller scale. These works are time less and deserve to be collected by all great museum in the Modern Art world, but until now only in a few museums in Switzerland and Germany i encountered these works. It was easier for me to find some great publications on this artist which are now available at www.ftn-books.com

 

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Alexander Calder Stedelijk Museum catalogues by Sandberg

There are 3 Calder catalogues published by the Stedelijk Museum ( 1947,1959 and 1969). 2 of them are available through www.ftn-books.com. The first 2 were designed by Willem Sandberg and the last one by Wim Crouwel. Many colelctors like the 1959 catalogue , this because of the bald design and great prints on the cover, but for me the 1949 is the best, much more subtle and a catalogue that shows the design path Sandberg is going to take. Choice of paper, typography and illustrations make this the perfect early Sandberg publication.

 

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Willy Boers (1905-1978).. a dutch artist hero

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Willy Boers, Dutch art ” insiders ” will know the name and the works he stands for. But for those less familiar with the artist Willy Boers here is a short biography. Willy Boers developed his art from realistic scenes into abstract, even hard edge art over a period of some 40 years. He stood at the cradle of the first dutch modern abstract expressionist paintings. Probably influenced by Miro and Picasso he developed his art into something very typical and recognizable as a Willy Boers painting.

When i first read the catalogue EEN NIEUWE SYNTHESE ( available at www.ftn-books.com) , there were 2 artist which immediately caught my eye. There was of course Willem Hussem and ….Willy Boers.

Boers was far less familiar, because i already had seen some Hussem paintings at gallery Nouvelles Images, but it was not until 10 years ago that i finally had a chance to admire some paintings by Boers “live” . It was at the gallery of Henk Klasema who had bought the remainder of the Boers studio and was selling these Willy Boers paintings. Because he had all periods available i could discover his development into hard edge abstract art, but was mostly convinced of the art he made in the period between 1949 and 1955.

Now is finally the time that Willy Boers is being recognized for the great dutch artist he was . A true pioneer in dutch Modern Art and sometimes his works come now available at auction. Keep this in mind… Boers is still affordable, but it will not last 10 years before his art will be picked up by many more art dealers and collectors, making it far less affordable than these works are right now.

There are some nice Boers publications available at www.ftn-books.com including the which was made for his Stedelijk Museum exhibition.

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