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Roger Raveel (1921-2013)

I am not the greatest fan of Roger Raveel, but occasionally i can appreciate his works. Specially the Beervelde project in the cellar corridors together with his friends from the Nieuwe Figuratie is a highlight. From his early days he has held exhibitions in the Netherlands and therefore a nice set of publications was published in the 60’s and 70’s by galerie Espace, who represented Raveel during these decades. Raveel is one of the great artists in Belgium, but beyond the Belgian borders his works are scarce. There are some in the Stedelijk Museum and van Abbemuseum, but those are the only ones i know of. Given the fact that he is not very well known outside Belgium and the Netherlands, i was surprised to find the number of publications i managed to collect over the years and which are now in my inventory. So if you are looking for Raveel publications please visit www.ftn-books.com

and complete your collection.

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Poster by Richard Paul Lohse

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Just a single item to blog about this day. Not an ordinary one , but a very special poster. The original silkscreen print was used as the exhibition poster for the Richard Paul Lohse exhibition in the van Abbemuseum in 1971.

One of the secrets of the  dutch publications which were published in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s is that in some cases  a special printing method ( lino/silkscreen/woodblock) was used for the publicity and exhibition publications….result a true piece of art. This Lohse poster is such a special production. A very large screenprint , printed by Hoffman and a special design by Richard Paul Lohse makes this a highly collectable Lohse item. A large screenprint with an impressive composition by Lohse. It is not a cheap poster, but once framed it shows its true quality and will impress all. A special item and a true piece of art of which i think it is probably the only one available on the market at this moment.

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There are only 7 R.P. Lohse’s in dutch collections but these are excellent ones ( see above).

The poster on offer can be compared to these beautiful paintings because it is from the same period.

available at www.ftn-books.com

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Mark Tobey (1890-1967)

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There was a time when i had not heard of Tobey, but since i saw some large works by him in both the Beyeler, Stedelijk Museum….. i am a fan.

It started with the catalogue i acquired 20 years ago. Bought the catalogue because of the Wim Crouwel design ,but was immediately attracted by the works within….They were Tobey’s .

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Tobey is most notable for his creation of so-called “white writing” – an overlay of white or light-colored calligraphic symbols on an abstract field which is often itself composed of thousands of small and interwoven brush strokes. This method, in turn, gave rise to the type of “all-over” painting style made most famous by Jackson Pollock, another American painter to whom Tobey is often compared.

Tobey is working on different sizes but for me his large works are the most impressive. The last 16 years of his live he spend in Basel, which is of course the reason why so many of his works stayed  there. Throughout the years he travelled all over the world.

He was an incessant traveler, visiting Mexico, Europe, Palestine, Israel, Turkey, Lebanon, China and Japan and spread his works this way in an organic way, but the main part of his oeuvre stayed in Switzerland, in Basel where le lived for 16 years.

Here are some locations where his works are part of the collection: Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Tate Gallery in London, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. There have been at least four posthumous individual exhibitions of Tobey’s work: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., USA, 1984; Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany, 1989; Galerie Beyeler, Basel, Switzerland, 1990; and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.

The publications below are available at www.ftn-books.com

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Henk Tas and his staged photography

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A dutch master in the art of staged photography is Henk Tas. Inspired by many great classic ( Pop & Rock) songs, he places objects from (his) childhood around him in a special setting and instantly it is recognizable as “HENK TAS”. Definitely a personal signature.

The photograph is taken and then , compared with the original setting, enlarged to enormous proportions. It makes you feel like an intruder in the staged scene, participating in it and encountering the figurines which populate it.

In 2001 the Henk Tas publication “Why me Lord” is chosen for the competition ” BEST VERZORGDE BOEKEN 2001″ and is one of the contenders for Best.

The book called ” WHY me LORD ” is still available at www.ftn-books.com.

This is what the jury said about the book and his staged photography:

Best Dutch Book Design 2001

Henk Tas, photographer and grabber at life’s banquet, belongs to that select band of cultural indefatigables. His work has never been completely in vogue, for reasons difficult to fathom, but never completely out of it either. It was relevant during the days of both staged photography and postmodernism, and went down well in New Age circles too.
The theme of Henk Tas’s work is pop music, with the occasional foray into rock’n’roll and blues. Henk Tas is the Rotterdam cowboy. He is second to none in taking plastic figures, artificial flowers and other generally unsightly accessories and infusing them with life. He is, besides, a great colourist. The staged photographs are exuberant in their hues, their synthetic extras embodying the passion of the professional artiste along with the fame and the impermanence immutably bound up with that passion. A great many photographs by Henk Tas and a text apiece by Els Barents, Roel Bentz van den Berg, Ute Eskildsen and Greil Marcus have been brought together by the book’s designer, Rick Vermeulen.

www address: www.henktas.nl

 

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Günther Uecker

All you need is a hammer and a bucket of nails….this is what you first think when you see the early ZERO works by Günther Uecker.

Together with Mack and Piene he belongs to the German part of the Zero mouvement.

It is now 15 years that ZERO is collected the world all over, but before this period the works by Uecker could only be seen in some of the larger german Museums.

Now his early Zero works and editions have spread all over the world, all because Zero has become such an important art mouvement.

Outside Germany , Uecker works was first presented in the dutch NUL exhibition from  1962 in the Stedelijk Museum. Together with Mack and Piene he made the light salon, which is still one of the masterpieces of Zero art.

Personally i have a preference for the works by Piene…. Uecker is a great artist, but what troubles me is that Uecker has not progressed with his art… he is still making paintings and objects with nails, cashing the great idea he once had. So an early Uecker for a collection can be one of the highlights, but a later period Uecker is just adding a famous name to a collection. Still there are some nice publications on Uecker at www.ftn-books.com

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Elsa Beskow ( 1874-1953)

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Is this serious art?….

No probably not, but since i have a great personal interest in book illustrations i want to share this with you. Elsa Beskow is one of the greatest illustrators the world has known in the last century. This scandinavian woman ( Norwegian father and Swedish mother ). Has made some of the greatest children’s books ever. Timeless stories with great illustrations and suitable for children of all ages ( 8-88 years as TinTin says). And since it is sometimes hard to find this series of Beskow books  . I want you to know that i managed to purchase a nice small library containing 7 of these classic Beskow titles. Enough…. here are the covers…and tomorrow i promise to blog on real art again.

www.ftn-books.com

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Armando, Riki Mijling + Eja Siepman van den Berg in Projectruimte Hoofdstraat 17

Another and exciting small exhibition to be opened in Projectruimte Hoofdstraat 17 has just been announced . 3 artists will be presented in conjunction which each other. The homebase of Eja Siepman van den Berg gives room to 2 other artists. This time Riki Mijling and Armando will be the guests. Mijling is the least known of these three, but works are present in the most important and prestigious collections, Caldic, DSM , Zadelhoff and the British museum among them. Armando needs no introduction and is known for his participation in the NUL  and Informelen mouvements. Personally i think his Berlin years are his strongest period with the beautiful and impressive Fahnen and Tree paintings. And last there are the sculptures by Eja Siepman van den Berg. Each time i visit the Projectruimte Hoofdstraat 17  i notice how excellent they blend with the works by the other artists. An exhibition to visit in the coming months.

Opening on the 27th of November 2016 and closing on Sunday 26th of February 2017.

address:

Projectruimte Hoofdstraat 17

Hoofdstraat 17

9244Cl  Beetsterzwaag

info@projectruimte-hoofdstraat17.com

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

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Gustav Mahler and Willem Mengelberg

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Mahler pioneer Willem Mengelberg

Willem Mengelberg, conductor of  the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, was grasped by Mahler’s music when he attended  the first performance of his Third Symphony in Krefeld (G) in 1902. Right from that moment, he vigorously took on promoting Mahler’s music, claiming Mahler to be  “the Beethoven of his time”.  In his persistent efforts to introduce Mahler’s music, Mengelberg gradually acquired an outstanding position  both  in The Netherlands and  in Europe,  in this respect  leaving behind  other contemporary conductors.

Time and again, Mengelberg tried to persuade Mahler to conduct his own works in Amsterdam. This materialized   in 1903, 1904, 1906 and 1909. During these visits, the composer was staying with the  Mengelbergs at their home. However, because of his numerous engagements elsewhere, Mahler was often compelled to decline Mengelberg’s  invitations for conducting.

Mengelberg’s commitment to promote Mahler’s music should not be underestimated. At the time, a substantial part of the public would leave the concert hall to demonstrate their disapproval of Mahler’s music, which was, on top of that, often ridiculed by the critics. Mengelberg  was convinced  of Mahler’s genius, which inspired him to persist in his dogged endeavours, taking for granted  that this implied  rowing against the stream . Only after years of sustained perseverance, a ‘Mahler community’ came into existence in The Netherlands, which formed the basis of the unprecedented success of the ‘Mahler Feest’ in 1920, drawing worldwide attention. In the 1920’s,  Mengelberg,  who had  by then also become conductor of the New York Phiharmonic, repeated his efforts to promote Mahler’s music to the American  public.

Mengelberg was one of the most important Mahler pioneers who deserves a special place of honour in our remembrance.  His tireless efforts to make  Mahler’s music better known to a greater public contributed  greatly to the international Mahler culture of this era.

The Willem Mengelberg’s archives in the Netherlands Music Institute contain, amongst other things, his conducting scores, which are characterized by his colourful  annotations that clearly indicate  his conductors interpretation of  the work concerned.  In addition, many of these scores also contain instructions and  remarks of Mahler himself: tangible and visible evidence of the close ties between Mengelberg and Mahler.

the above text is from willemmengelberg.nl

Why this blog on Mengelberg? It was about 20 years ago that well before the “craze” of huge and impressive publications ( Newton, Araki) that this tremendous large publication was published on the occasion of the Mengelberg Festival 1995. It is indeed a huge publication. Weight being well over 5 kg and published in a cardbox blue linnen covered container with a text plublication and in a different volume the musical score by Mengelberg with his annotations . This is the perfect facsimile.

Best of all: designed by one of my heroes ….Wim Crouwel. This is such a publication that will be in demand for a very long time and very hard to find. Now i have two copies available from a remainder stock and both in “new” condition at www.ftn-books.com

 

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Jurriaan Schrofer

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Yesterday we ate with our good friend Annemarie Schrofer and because of the beautiful paintings by her father on the walls, i remembered another member of the Schrofer family ……Jurriaan Schrofer.

Born in 1926 and also a child of Annemarie’s father Willem Schrofer he would become one of the leading typography and graphic designers in the Netherlands. His works can be considered as “avant garde” design, thinking “out of the box” and soon he would develop his very own style . He originally wanted to become a film director, but ended being the assistant to Dick Elffers. This was the starting point of a splendid career as a graphic designer. For a few years in the seventies he was a member of Total Design, but soon followed again his own path. Highly original and recognizable are his designs. He was commissioned by many dutch important institutions and was appreciated for the designs he made for them, but his true recognition as one of the leading graphic designers from last century is only 25 years old. His works would become internationally known and appreciated. There now is a high interest in his works from leading British Graphic design schools and recently the same interest comes from the US.

Jurriaan Schrofer books can still be picked up at reasonable prices and for those interested in dutch graphic design, the designs by Schrofer are an absolute and quintessential part in the history of Graphic design and not to be missed in any collection. www.ftn-books.com

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Francis Bacon

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If you ask me which artist was represented with the most beautiful and best catalogues published for every exhibition organized with his works…. the answer is Francis Bacon.

Oversized catalogues with several hundreds of pages, excellent print quality and because of its content in many cases with multiple fold out pages to show Bacon’s Triptych’s in the best possible way outside a museum.

I followed Bacon closely because in 2001 the Gemeentemuseum organized its most expensive and logistically one of the most difficult exhibitions ever ….the one on Francis Bacon. The plan was to print the catalogue in Singapore, but because of a promised book publication to the former director, he decided for a dutch publisher. An initial publication run was set in relation with the expected number of visitors. Soon after opening it proved a wrong estimate, because fortunately, the works by Bacon proved to be far more popular than expected. 3 editions of the catalogue were printed during the exhibition and in total almost 8.00o copies were sold . A huge commercial succes, but even more important a great succes for Bacon as one of the leading modern artists from the 20th century.

This was one of the last times so many large Bacon paintings ,including many Triptychs, were presented in one Bacon exhibition. The exhibition showed the importance of Bacon and because of this, the Gemeentemuseum got on loan the Bacon which is in the collection of the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen and one from the estate of Francis Bacon. Nowhere in the Netherlands so many Bacon paintings can be seen in one spot and  and the sixties acquisition  of the PARALYTIC CHILD WALKING ON ALL FOURS proved to be a worthy addition the collection of the Gemeentemuseum. ( in the JAARBOEK a study by Josephus Jitta is published on the “Paralytic child”)

 

wilfried

www.ftn-books.com