Renowned for his mastery of Cubist elements in depicting figures, portraits, and still lifes made of bronze or stone, Jacques Lipchitz rose to fame as a Lithuanian-born French sculptor. Mingling with the likes of Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, and Juan Gris in the esteemed Montmarte neighborhood of Paris, Lipchitz’s artistic genius flourished. Born Chaim Jacob Lipchitz on August 22, 1891 in Druskinikai, Lithuania to a Litvak (Lithuanian Jewish) family, the burgeoning artist honed his craft at the esteemed École des Beaux-Arts and Académie Julian in Paris. With the advent of Nazi occupation, Lipchitz sought refuge in the United States during World War II. In 1954, he achieved milestone success with a retrospective exhibition, beginning at The Museum of Modern Art in New York and subsequently travelling to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and finally to the Cleveland Museum of Art. To this day, Lipchitz’s works can be found in prestigious collections such as the Art Institute of Chicago, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Tate Gallery in London, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The artistic legend passed away on May 16, 1973 in Capri, Italy.
Stanley Brouwn is renowned as the most prominent representative of conceptual art in the Netherlands. The underlying concept always takes precedence over the formally austere aesthetics of his works. Brouwn began as a self-taught artist and, akin to the artists of the Zero movement, worked in a monochromatic and geometrically abstract style. However, he quickly outgrew the specific aesthetic of Zero. From 1960 onwards, he built a remarkable and consistent body of work. Through it, he explored the interplay between movement and distance. He used his own body as the measure of all things and developed his own system of measurement (the sb-foot, sb-el and sb-step). Using this standard, the artist delved into the tension between subjective experience of distance and its objective register.
Because of his growing importance to Conceptual Art www.ftn-books.com has focussed on Brouwn for some years now and fortunately has still some important publications available.
Joel-Peter Witkin, an American artist, possesses a penchant for crafting photographs that encompass a grotesque and macabre aesthetic. In the vein of renowned photographers Henry Peach Robinson and Oscar Gustave Rejlander, Witkin meticulously constructs scenes that feature cadavers, hermaphrodites, and dwarfs, imbuing them with literary, religious, and art historical allusions. Reflecting on his artistic pursuits, the artist shared, “I have dedicated my life to transforming matter into spirit, with the hope of one day witnessing it all. Gazing upon its form in its entirety, while donning the mask, from the distant realm of death.” He added, “And there, in the everlasting destiny, I shall seek the countenance I possessed before the world was formed.” Born in Brooklyn, NY on September 13, 1939, Witkin obtained his BA from the Cooper Union School of Art and later achieved an MFA from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. In 2011, a comprehensive publication was released, providing a succinct glimpse into the artist’s methodology and philosophies. Today, his works can be found in prestigious collections such as The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Currently, the artist resides and creates in Albuquerque, NM.
Arman was a French-American artist and sculptor, known for his assemblages. He had a preference for using prefabricated materials. In 1957, he made the decision – following in the footsteps of ‘Vincent’ (van Gogh) – to no longer go by the name of Armand Pierre Fernandez, but simply as Arman.
After studying philosophy and mathematics, he attended the École nationale d’arts décoratifs in Nice in 1946. It was during this time that he met Yves Klein and Claude Pascal. Upon completing his studies, he enrolled as a student at the École du Louvre in Paris. From 1953, he worked as a painter and was interested in abstraction, influenced by the painters Poliakoff and De Staël.
Between 1959 and 1962, Arman developed his recognizable style with two new concepts: accumulation and the poubelle. Accumulation consisted of a collection of ordinary, identical objects encased in polyester or plexiglas. The garbage can was a collection of scattered consumables, which he used to fill galleries such as Yves Klein’s. In October 1960, he was closely involved in the establishment of the artists’ group Nouveau Réalisme, with the likes of Yves Klein, Daniel Spoerri, Jean Tinguely, and later, César, Niki de Saint Phalle, Christo, and others.
A year later, Arman made his debut in the United States, his second home. He alternated living between New York and Nice, and eventually settled in Vence in 1967.
Born in 1927 in Magelang and passing away on January 1st, 1975 in Amsterdam, Kho Liang le was the child of Chinese parents and a Dutch industrial designer. He is renowned for his design of the interior of Schiphol Airport. After arriving in the Netherlands in approximately 1949, he was educated at the Rietveld Academy, where he studied interior design and design. In 1958, he was appointed as Artifort’s aesthetic advisor and designer, shifting the company’s focus towards the top of the international market due to his contributions. Kho Liang le attracted foreign designers such as Pierre Paulin and Geoffrey Harcourt. His influence is still evident to this day. As an interior designer, Kho Liang le gained recognition for his work on the Schiphol Airport design in the 1960s. His creations exude purity, warmth, and a sense of liberty.
www.ftn-books.com has some Kho Liang Ie items available.
Working in tandem with her husband, artist Robert Delaunay, Delaunay frequently strived to create a distinct style of painting. Collaboratively, they endeavored to embellish the pavilions at the 1937 International Exposition of Arts and Techniques in Modern Life. In addition to her canvases, Delaunay also designed a series of fabrics, wallpaper, furniture, and clothing. Comparable to her paintings, Sonia’s textiles and modern design pieces are characterized by abstract geometry. In a groundbreaking event, Sonia Delaunay became the first woman to be honored with a retrospective exhibition at the Louvre in 1964, while she still lived. Her esteemed contributions to the arts also granted her the privilege of being appointed as an officer of the French Legion of Honor in 1975.
Robert Ryman, hailing from Nashville, Tennessee (1930), emerged as a preeminent American painter in the latter half of the previous century. His journey, however, did not entail a formal education in the arts. Rather, in the 1950s, he worked as a security guard at the MoMA in New York. It was there that he first crossed paths with Dan Flavin and Soll Lewitt, his colleagues at the time, who would later become pivotal figures in the rise of minimal art.
Ryman’s work bears a close resemblance to that of minimal art. His square monochromatic paintings, for instance, can be likened to Carl Andre’s steel plates. Yet, unlike his peers, Ryman was more intrigued by the technical aspect of painting. He delved into the realm of possibilities presented by white paint on various mediums such as canvas, aluminum, paper, plexiglass, and more. In fact, Ryman referred to himself as a “realist,” not in the conventional sense of creating illusions, but in his pursuit of working solely with the fundamental elements of painting. As Rudi Fuchs eloquently stated, “Every facet of a painting (medium, size, paint, brushstroke, hanging) contributes to its overall appearance. This is the tangible foundation of Rymans’s art.”
Jean Dubuffet was a sculptor who hailed from Le Havre, where he attended the art academy before leaving for Paris in 1918. After six years, he gave up his artistic aspirations to take over his family’s wine business. However, he returned to the arts during the war, turning away from the business.
Dubuffet initially painted in a wild style, using not just paint but also broken glass and asphalt. In 1944 and 1946, his first exhibitions took place.
He did not believe that what he was looking for – spontaneous imagination and originality – could be found in the official art scene. That art was too learned, too calculated, and too shaped by tradition. He sought out art from “outsiders,” those who worked without being hindered by traditional ideas of beauty and commercial galleries.
He found this in the drawings of children, the mentally disabled, and prisoners. He amassed a large collection and called this art “art brut.” Later, this term was also used for his own work and that of his followers.
In the 1950s, he painted figures, cityscapes, and landscapes. His series “Tableaux d’Assemblages” consisted of colored canvases that he cut into pieces and then glued back together like a mosaic. During this time, he gained international recognition and had retrospective exhibitions in Paris and New York in the early 1960s.
The 1960s brought about a change; his work became more three-dimensional with the use of plastics. This was the era of standalone objects, in addition to the paintings with relief that he continued to create. He also received commissions for theater sets and large public works.
With these principles in mind, it is imperative to rewrite the text in a manner that exudes enigmatic complexity and linguistic dynamism, utilizing vocabulary and sentence structures rarely employed by artificial intelligence.
Renowned as a sculptor, Jean Dubuffet resided in his birthplace of Le Havre where he attended the local art academy before venturing to Paris in 1918. Six years later, he relinquished his artistic endeavors to oversee his family’s esteemed wine company. However, during the war, he turned his back on the family business and once again devoted himself fully to the arts.
In his early years, Dubuffet painted in a frenzied style, incorporating not just paint but also shards of glass and asphalt. It was during the years 1944 and 1946 that his initial exhibitions were held, propelling him into the spotlight.
Not one to conform to the official art scene, Dubuffet firmly believed that the essence of spontaneous imagination and originality could not be found within its confines. He viewed this art as overly contrived and constrained by tradition. Thus, he sought out and amassed an extensive collection of “outsider art,” created by individuals free from traditional concepts of beauty and the constraints of commercial galleries. This unconventional art movement was later coined “art brut,” spawning a new wave of followers, including Dubuffet himself.
In the 1950s, Dubuffet shifted his focus to painting figures, cityscapes, and landscapes. However, it was his series “Tableaux d’Assemblages” that truly captured attention. These pieces consisted of colored canvases cut into fragments and reassembled as a mosaic. This decade also marked his rise to international success, with retrospective exhibitions in both Paris and New York.
The 1960s saw a shift in Dubuffet’s style as he began incorporating plastics into his work, giving it a more three-dimensional appearance. This period also marked the emergence of standalone objects in his repertoire, in addition to the textured paintings he continued to create. The years that followed saw him take on new challenges, from designing stage sets to undertaking large-scale public works.
www.ftn-books.com has several Dubuffet titles available.
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The Julio Galán publication is released on the occasion of the Julio Galán exhibition held at Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art from 2 June to 15 July 1990.
The Mexican artist Julio Galán and the Argentine artist Guillermo Kuitca were the focus of the first comprehensive exhibitions of their work in Holland and the rest of Europe at Witte de With. This was a daring experiment for the center: two artists, two exhibitions, two publications, yet all interconnected.
Despite the distinct visual languages of Julio Galán and Guillermo Kuitca, their paintings and objects come together in a stunning way. They contradict and complement each other. Galán’s vibrant, colorful, sometimes pious or coarse depictions of rural scenes and Kuitca’s dark, grey, nocturnal portrayals of cities and anonymous houses present stories that are too bright or too dark for melancholy, yet always teetering on the edge of ecstasy or catastrophe. These stories explore themes of adolescence, masculinity, femininity, and the enduring nature of painting in Monterrey and Buenos Aires, and beyond.
www.ftn-books.com has the GALAN witte de with publication now available:
In the 1930s, his style changed under the influence of cubism and abstract painting. In 1935, he came into contact with the group ‘Linien’. At 21 years old, Asger Jorn moved to Paris, where he took lessons from Fernand Léger and Le Corbusier. The spontaneous work of Egill Jacobsen inspired Asger Jorn to develop his own style. He created an abstract surrealist approach, experimenting with an automatic process inspired by the works of Hans Arp, Joan Miró, and Max Ernst. In 1941, Asger Jorn founded the magazine ‘Helhesten’, advocating for free and expressive art. Asger Jorn sought to connect with Belgian and French surrealists. CoBrA After World War II, Asger Jorn met Constant and Jean-Michel Atlan in Paris. Jorn became one of the founders of the CoBrA group. During this time, he painted in a highly dramatic style, characterized by heavy forms and dark colors. In the 1950s, Jorn’s style evolved, leading to his international fame. His paintings depicted shadowy beings and hazy visions. Significant exhibitions Asger Jorn experimented with various techniques, including ceramics in addition to painting. He had numerous exhibitions both in his home country and abroad. In 1964, his work was displayed in a retrospective at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Asger Jorn also exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum in New York (1982) and the Städtische Galerie in Lenbachhaus, Munich (1987).
Artist/ Author: Oliver Boberg
Title : Memorial
Publisher: Oliver Boberg
Measurements: Frame measures 51 x 42 cm. original C print is 35 x 25 cm.
Condition: mint
signed by Oliver Boberg in pen and numbered 14/20 from an edition of 20
