Category: antiquarian books

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the Rietveld Schröderhuis

address :

Prins Hendriklaan 50, 3583 EP Utrecht, the Netherlands

Yes, you still can see and visit this iconic architectural masterpiece which was designed by Gerrit Rietveld at the time he was a “de Stijl” member. Together with Piet Mondriaan and Theo van Doesburg he was was one of the founders of the DE STIJL mouvement in the Netherlands.

Soon Theo van Doesburg dropped out of this mouvement because he found himself restricted by the horizontal and vertical lines the mouvement prescribed. He wanted to use the Diagonal line too, but Rietveld believed in these horizontal and vertical lines and used them together with the primary colors he loved so much and draw with them one of the most beautiful small buildings from the last century. When you visit Utrecht, visit the Schroderhuis too. BTW. the house got its name from the first inhabitant of the house. She commissioned Rietveld to build it for her. Truus Schröder-Schräder lived in it for her entire life.

www.ftn-books.com has some nice books on the Rietveld husi and a kit from which you can rebuild the house yourself in a much smaller scale.

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Cocteau and Man Ray = BARBETTE

In the mid twenties Jean Cocteau commissioned Man Ray to take the photographs of his famous Barbette performance. A performance in which he personated the beautiful and famous Barbette and this would become one of the first “public” personifications of a woman by a man. Cocteau is a highly original artist and when i searched on the internet for he Barbette book, which i have in the collection of www.ftn-books.com,  i encountered this excellent article

The Surreal Sex of Beauty: Jean Cocteau and Man Ray’s “Le Numéro Barbette”

by Chase Dimock

This explains the importance of the performance and gives an insight in both the persons of Cocteau and Man Ray.

 

de Woelrat published an excellent little book on this performance by Jean Cocteau available at:

 

wilfried

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Giulio Paolini and Rudi Fuchs

The catalogue i write about is the Giulio Paolini  catalogue made for the Musee des Beaux Arts Nantes from 1987. This is not such a well know catalogue but because of its provenance i chose this one. Paolini is a well known “Arte Povera”artist and  this fame has brought him all over the world with his art. One of his admirers is Rudi Fuchs who organized exhibitions with Paolini in the van Abbemuseum and the Stedelijk Museum and because of this, he always received complimentary copies whenever there was another exhibition with Paolini. One of these catalogues i have for sale is signed by Rudi Fuchs, meaning that this must have belonged to his personal library. It is a rather obscure publication, but very nicely published with an impressive cover with the name of Giulio Paolini underneath an arch. Exhibition was organized by Henry-Claude Cousseau, but the importance of this catalogue and proof of its quality is that is was within the library of Rudi Fuchs. Signature in blue ink on the first inner page.

catalogue available at www.ftn-books.com

 

wilfried

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Agnes Martin and Thomas Ammann

Agnes Martin has become one of the greats in Modern Art from the last Fifty years. In 1977 the Stedelijk Museum published an excellent catalogue in which the quality of painting was obvious. Beautiful and impressive design by Wim Crouwel and one that is in worldwide demand because of its design and subject. Since then many catalogues were published on Martin but 2 stand out. The first is the one which was published for the Agnes Martin exhibition in the Josef Albers Museum / Quadrat Bottrop. The catalogue was published in such an excellent way that i had to have one myself for my own collection. The poster is even more special because it is an original silkscreen print in such delicate colour scheme that it reflects in the best way the quality of the work by Agnes Martin. The final book i would like to tell about is the Thomas Ammann  Fine Art catalogue they published in 2008. Large sized book with excellent printing and impressive paintings by Martin. Buy these three titles at www.ftn-books.com and  do not forget to take a look at the impressive poster made for the Quadrat exhibition when i will list this later this month at www.ftn-books.com.