antiquarian books – Page 149

Posted on 08.04.201711.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Ettore Sottsass (1917-2007) ,first retrospective in the Netherlands in April-October 2018

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Ettore Sottsass was one of the founding members of the Memphis group in 1981. He made some iconic designs for Alessi and Artemide and now is announced that a large retrospective will be held in the Stedelijk Museum in the April-October period in 2018 Prepare your self for this exhibition and look at the books available on Sottsass at www.ftn-books.com

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Posted on 29.03.201711.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Andries Dirk Copier (1901-1991)

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If there is one glas artist you will probably know the name of, or at least who’s work you encountered once in your life time, it must be A.D. Copier. After studying as an apprentice at the workshops of his father at the Leerdam Glas factory and the vakschool voor Typografie in Utrecht, he became practically the sole designer for the factory for a period of almost 40 years. In these years he made many glas related designs, but one stands out…it is the Gilde glas series which is still being made and copied all over the world.

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The glas has excellent drinking and tasting qualities holds extremely well in you hand and is one of the icons in dutch design. Since he left the Leerdam factory in 1971 he made unica and glas objects after his own designs .

Andries Dirk Copier is considered as one of the great true talented artists in the world of glas, the difference between him and for example Lino Tagliapietra is that Copier always has the usability and the aesthetics of the object in mind, where as others loose themselves in experiments. www.ftn-books.com has some nice books on Copier in its inventory.

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Posted on 17.03.201712.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Lucio Fontana (1899-1968)

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For me , he is one of the greatest from Last century. Lucio Fontana has had a long career in art and joined several groups, before he became part of the ZERO mouvement.

https://youtu.be/tOPR5YDVpUo

After ZERO he stayed true to his new found form of art in which monochrome paintings were slashed with a sharp Stanley knife or manipulated with his fingers,thus altering the surface with other materials and objects. Glass was one of his favorites to use. Fontana did not become very old, but in his art career of over 40 years he was one of the front runners in Modern Art. Willem Sandberg admired him very much and because of the importance of Zero and this admiration for Fontana, Fontana received his first Amsterdam monographic exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum in 1967. Catalogue design by Wim Crouwel makes this the perfect combination for a great publication. Sandberg/Crouwel and Fontana combined in one publication is hard to beat. Since 1967 , Fontana featured in many group exhibitions on Zero and had solo exhibitions all over the world. Art collectors must pay huge sums of money to acquire a Fontana ( if ever there is one for sale/ there was one at Dorotheum and Sothebys last year, they made specials on youtube on these paintings)

and Museums that have one in their collection are lucky, because his paintings are nowadays “hors catagorie”. What can be had at reasonable prices? Of course some great publication at www.ftn-books.com and whenever you find a MUSEUMJOURNAAL with the special Fontana cover, do not hesitate and ….BUY IT!!!.

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Posted on 16.03.201712.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

the prints of Frank Stella (1936)

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Two reasons to devote a blog to Frank Stella. First there is an acquisition by the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag which i do not understand. For me it is a “stand alone” work of art with no relation with other works within the collection and at the time i saw it , i recognized it as a Stella, but was not very impressed by it. I would have thought the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam would have bought a work by Stella, because it fits in….but at the Gemeentemuseum it looks to be “a stranger at our midst”. Still Frank Stella is a great print maker and one of the reasons for this blog is to point out a very fine publication the Stedelijk Museum has published in 1970. The design was done by Wim Crouwel, but the best is there is a highly original “blind print” used as cover for this great catalogue.

It is one of the most spectacular catalogues from the 70’s with its embossed cover. A special artist cover which relates to one of the first “shaped canvases” use of multiple papers and ink colors. Typical Crouwel design. Book measures 10.8 x 8.2 inches, contains 78 pages plus cover. text in dutch and english.

Frank Stella is an important artist, has made some great works of art, but especially his minimal early works are for me among his best, including this great 1970 catalogue.

The Wim Crouwel / Stella catalogue from 1970 and other Frank Stella publications are available at www.ftn-books.com

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Posted on 15.03.201712.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959)

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Arguably the greatest architect of all time is Frank Lloyd Wright and the villa Fallingwater in Pennsylviania is one of the “must see” buildings i still have on my wish list. The Guggenheim Museum in NY i already visited but Fallingwater not.

FLW was a visionary architect. His designs were the very first modernist designs in architecture and very much based on constructivist principles. I just learned that as a child he build buildngs with FROBEL blocks and these wooden blocks must have been an endless source of inspiration. FLW was an architect whose designs were practically all executed in the USA, but that does not mean that one can not find FLW inspired buildings elsewhere. For instance, in the Netherlands his designs were admired by the DE STIJL mouvement and Dudok and van ‘t Hoff made buildings inspired by FLW.

A great architect and fortunately we had in the past decades several large exhibitions on his architecture and projects . One of the first was the exhibition in the Boymans van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam in 1952. What makes it even more special is that it was one of the first designs Benno Wissing made for the Boymans museum.

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Wissing since 1952 has had a tremendous career and is, together with Sandberg and Crouwel one of the absolute great designers from the last century. So visit www.ftn-books.com and search for Frank Lloyd Wright or Benno Wissing and discover the many beautiful books both these great artist have made over the years.

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Posted on 01.03.201712.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Enzo Cucchi (1949)

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Enzo Cucchi was born in 1949 in Morro d‘Alba, a farming village in the province of Ancona in central Italy. As an autodidactic painter Cucchi won different prices already in his early years even though he was more interested in poetry at the time. He frequently visited poet Mino De Angelis, who was in charge of the magazine „Tau“. Through „La Nuova Foglio di Macerata“, a small publishing house, he met with art critic Achille Bonito Oliva, an important figure in the artist‘s prospective career. In its catalogues „La Nuova Foglio di Macerata“ published writings of artists such as Cucchi’s „Il veleno è stato sollevato e trasportato!“ in 1976. Frequent trips to Rome in the mid-seventies revived Cucchi’s interest in visual arts. He moved to Rome, temporarily abandoned poetry and dedicated himself exclusively to the visual arts. Here Cucchi met with different artists such as Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, Mimmo Paladino and Nicola de Maria with whom he began to work in close contact and to establish dialectical and intellectual dialogues.Achille Bonito Oliva was the first to see this young generation of Italian artists of the seventies as a group. Since this group of artists has frequently have ehibitions as a group or as an individual artists in the Netherlands. The Groninger Museum and the Stedelijk Museum had shows during the eighties and nineties and bought several works for their collections. Together with the exhibitions some excellent catalogues were published of which some are available at www.ftn-books.com

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Posted on 24.02.201712.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Eduardo Paolozzi- Stedelijk Museum catalogue nr. 442

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There are multiple reasons to like the publication no 442. of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Published in 1968 on the occasion of the Eduardo Paolozzi exhibition this is a 100% original work of art . A serigraphie by Paolozzi in his typical Pop Art style. Folded as issued and when folded out an impressive large work of art. Design?….by Wim Crouwel who used the backside of the serigraphie for all the information on Paolozzi. A great Pop Art work of art and available at www.ftn-books.com

Posted on 23.02.201712.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Lucebert (1924-1994)

Everywhere i come across Lucebert (Lubertus Jacobus Swaanswijk) nowadays. Re-editions of his poems, paintings at auction and exhibitions in galleries and museums. There is a huge interest in his works since 20 years or so, but before that period he was hardly known as a painter , but nowadays he is considered as one of the leading dutch artists from the 20th century . In his early years he was very much influenced by Cobra , but soon he developed his personal style which for me is a crossing between Cobra and Art Brut. He became known for his poems, but when you ask about Lucebert nowadays, people think of him first and foremost as a painter and because of this interest it is harder and harder to find the early publications on his paintings and etchings. There are some by Nouvelles Images, but the most important ones come from the pubvlications series of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Publications in which original etchings were bound and therefore are highly collectable ( and expensive) publications. www.ftn-books.com has a nice selection of classic and collectable Lucebert publications.

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for more information on Lucebert visit http://lucebertstichting.nl

Posted on 19.02.201712.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

SOTO and galerie Denise Rene

One of my favorite galleries of all time is the galerie Denise Rene in Paris and not only because the artists they represent are the ones i like most, but also because of their publications which in many cases contain something extra. Like this SOTO catalogue from 1970 which i acquired last week. The blue, silver and yellow squares within the catalogue are all executed in silkscreen prints and which combinations forms an abstract composition within the catalogue, which makes this catalogue some kind of an artist book and not an ordinary catalogue. This catalogue is now available at www.ftn-books.com. As for the other Denise Rene catalogues search for Denise Rene and find some other great catalogues by this famous gallery in Paris.

Posted on 14.02.201712.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Leopold Museum ..Vienna

A crazy month. Traveling to Madeira, Paris and twice to Vienna. First trip to Vienna to chose our new dog Dexter from a nest of eight in Vienna and second trip last weekend to pick him up. Traveling with us our son Lucas, who wanted to witness this pick up and see Vienna for the first time. Because it was the museum that impressed me the most during our visit 2 years ago, we took him to the Leopold to show him TOD UND LEBEN by Gustav Klimt.

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This is the painting that has it all. All aspects of life caught within one framed painting. Measuring aprox. 2,5 x 2,5 meters it is large and impressive and one of the icons in modern art, but the Leopold has much much more. 4 floors with art filled by Klimt, Moser, Kokoschka and last but not least Egon Schiele. I have seen many Schiele paintings and drawings in my life. From an impressive Schiele contribution to the KLIMT/ SCHIELE / KLEE exhibition in the Gemeentemuseum to the special Schiele exhibtion in the Guggenheim in Bilbao, but was really impressed by the amount and quality of the Schiele’s on show in the Leopold Museum two years ago. This time it was totally different….from the four floors, 2 were closed and worse……. all the Schieles on Paper were in Facsimile. It is like going to a theater show, paying full entrance fee and see only half of it on television.

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These were not the real works of art and a museum like the Leopold Museum should inform its visitors on forehand that these were reproductions of the real works of art. To make it even worse they charged the full entrance fee for the visit…..a true disappointment, but with a fond memory to the TOD UND LEBEN/1915 which is still there and one of the most impressive and fascinating paintings in the world.