Category: conceptual

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Jet Nijkamp…Verdrongen Landschap

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The reason to write this blog is the book i recently purchased by Jet Nijkamp. Filled with nature drawings of wood, trunks and landscapes and enhanced with text by Tsead Bruinja. Thsi titel “Verdrongen Landschap” was published in a small edition and is now available at www.ftn-books.com.

verdrongen landschap a

An excellent title with drawings by Nijkamp , which remind me of the early drawings by Frank van Hemert influenced by Anselm Kiefer. but……visiting her site i noticed that she had published a complete series of Donald Trump dressed in Womans Clothing. A “funny” series of pastel drawings on international newspapers. It is not funny only , but it shows some criticism towards Donald Trump and his presidency. Trump takes poses like the great states man he think he is, however…..the drawings make fun of him and puts his presidency into perspective. The best one is the Obama meeting. Obama is the statesman and Trump the one with a dress on. I can not vote for any US president , but i wish i could and i  would not have any doubt who to vote for.

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Philip Akkerman (1957)

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A daily blog on “dutch” contemporary art is not complete without a blog dedicated to Philip Akkerman. From his earliest days he started as an artist he portrayed himself and consequently only made self portraits ever after. Whether these were done in oil, drawing, gouache, watercolor or any other material. His works had only one subject… his own “face”. … Interesting is to see that a good portrait by Akkerman reflects his personality, his mood and how he grows from a young man into a middle aged and now a somewhat older men,.

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A face full of character makes these series of portraits one of the only series in modern art totally devoted to the personality of the artist who makes it.

A great series of hundreds of his self-portraits can be found over here:

https://philipakkerman.com/paintings

www.ftn-books.com has some very nice Akkerman publications available:

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Over 200 different Art & Project items in store

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It has been almost a decade to collect as many as the 210 different Art & Project items that i currently have for sale. It started when i bought a “lot” of museum catalogues at auction and among theme were some Bulletins by this worldwide known and respected dutch gallery. Not the most famous ones , but still a nice selection with Richard Long and Hamish Fulton. I got focussed on these publications and found some rare ones at reasonable prices in a time that nobody was interested. But the big breakthrough came when i finally was lucky enough to encounter 2 nice collections. One at a local book dealer who wanted a fair price for a selection of 30 Bulletins and the second time was at auction where a lot was not sold and i decided to buy it in the aftersale of the auction house.This last one added over 80 different Art & Project items to my collection and inventory. Just have a look at www.ftn-books.com and search for “art & project” and you will be pleasantly surprised with the large selection that i was able to collect for FTN books.

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the 500 first Stedelijk Museum publications…A very important list

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Last Thursday i encountered finally one of the list I was hoping to find for a long time. The list is made in the beginning of the Eighties when interest rose in acquiring and collecting the Stedelijk Museum publications. Since the start in the Mid ’30s from last century, over 1100 publications have been published by the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and this list contains the numbers and titles of the first 500 numbered publications. Willem Sandberg, Piet Zwart and Wim Crouwel, 3 of the greatest of Dutch designers all can be found on this list and i noticed of the 500 titles on it I have over 400 currently available at www.ftn-books.com

Beside the one on the list, there are of course many others published by the Stedelijk Museum FTN books has available. Take a look, save and share this very important document. the list is in PDF format and can be downloaded with the link below:

sm lijst 1 tm 500

 

 

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Helena van der Kraan (1940-2020)

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A few days ago i learned that Helena van der Kraan had died at the age of 80.

I have encountered Helena a number of times at the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag where she had become friends with many of its staff. At many occasions these friendships grew into series of portraits and i remember at one time she made photographs of all the staff to be published in a little book which was presented to Theo van Velzen at his leaving the museum. A very kind woman she was and she will be surely remembered for her great photographs she made during her entire career.

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On June 14th, on her 80th birthday, former participant and photographer Helena van der Kraan passed away. Born in Prague in 1940, she came to the Netherlands shortly after the uprising in former Czechoslovakya in 1968, for a two year residency at what was then known as ‘ateliers ’63’. There she met sculptor Axel van der Kraan, with whom she collaborated for many years on large-scale, wooden sculptures, until Helena’s artistic practice focussed more and more on photography. She is known for her restrained and tender portraits of artist friends. Her work is represented in the collections of the Rijksmuseum, the Stedelijk Museum and Museum Boijmans-Van Beuningen. In Fotomuseum The Hague, her series of teddybear photographs is on view until November 1st, 2020.

https://www.fotomuseumdenhaag.nl/nl/tentoonstellingen/beer-teddy

 

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the final … Piet Dirkx weekly

This is the last of the “Piet Dirkx weekly” . After i had finished the cigarboxes 2 years ago and now the series publishing almost 80 Piet Dirkx weekly’s . This series has now come to an end.

Small, important, rare kinds of Piet Dirkx publications and collectibles have come along. Does this mean that there will no longer be any Piet Dirkx publications/ blogs anymore? Certainly not….. i will be preparing in the next months the material for another 60+ works by Piet Dirkx and will publish these in a “PIET DIRKX MONTHLY”.

For now i have decided this beautiful and cherished 2009 New Years wish by Piet Dirkx to conclude this series. It is a pencil and watercolor drawing. Signed  and colored by Piet.

measures 14 x 9 cm.

dirkx nieuwjaar mond

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Josée Pittiloud (1952)

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A rare occasion that i could not find a portrait photograph of Josée Pittiloud. Suisse born in Sion in 1952 his/her art is modern, timeless and of a rare quality. It is the kind of art i personally like and collect if possible. Trying to find books on this artist is near impossible , except for the Pro Helvetia publication  from 1990 that i have now available at www.ftn-books.com

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If you have a photograph and can help me to place it above this blog, please sent it to wvdelshout@ziggo.nl

pitteloud

 

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Ulrich Rückriem (continued)

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A few years ago i wrote a blog on the work of art i was able to buy , but did not. The story is as follows. At that time the Gemeentemuseum was printing its publications with the very best printers in the Netherlands. Among them was of course Lecturis and my contact with Lecturis was the late Jan Jongepier. Jan , knowing my interest in art , offered me at one time a series of original works of art. All were for sale through Lecturis. Lecturis had at one time accepted works of art as (partial) payment for the publications they were printing for the artists. These publications were made outside the official editions for the dutch museums or accepted as part of the financing of the editions. They build a nice collection this way, but did not know what to do with it, hence the offer, which was made to me. In retrospect i can tell that these prices were outright cheap, but at that time i could not finance any of the works offered.

Still i always remember Jan and his art collection from Lecturis. Specially now that i have added the Rückriem catalogue which must have been the origin of the Ruckriem work in the Lecturis collection. It is now available at www.ftn-books.com

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Piet Dirkx weekly

The year 1996. Piet Dirkx had an exhibition at the Kunstverein Graftschaft Bentheim together with Sarah Pelikan

 

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dirkx belair a

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Marie Hanlon (1948)

 

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Sometimes you must consider yourself very lucky. I have been writing on art and artists for almost 5 years now and during this period I have written blogs on many known and lesser-known artists. In the meantime selecting with these blogs those publications that are available through FTN-Books. In this way promoting the art, books and publications I am selling.

It must have been a month ago that I received an email by an artist I did not know. She introduced herself, spoke of the great selection of books I am selling and wanted very much to introduce her works. Her name …MARIE HANLON…. and she asked if I would like to take a look at her site….and so I did.

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I am always intrigued by artists who I do not know, so I searched for her on the internet and found that she makes the kind of art I am fond of. It is a mix between minimal, constructivist, hard edge and even surrealistic art at some times. We wrote and agreed that it would be nice to make her works known with the help of the ftn-books.com site and ftn blogs and now I am proud to announce that her publications are available at www.ftn-books.com and that she made an artist selection of 4 drawings that are exclusively available through FTN ART at special introductory prices.

Glitch
Acrylic paint

 

In future blogs, new material will be proposed to my readers, but in the meantime here is a short biography on Marie and the link to her site so you can find out yourself why I was fascinated by her work. https://www.mariehanlon.com/

and for information on the books and art by Marie Hanlon please contact me at ftnbooksandart@gmail.com

Marie was born in Kilkenny and studied History of European Painting and English at University College Dublin, at the National College of Art & Design/Dublin and has worked as a professional artist since 1990.

Known mainly as an abstract artist of finely made small and medium-sized works, Marie’s output in recent years encompasses a broader range of media. Through her collaboration with contemporary composers, she has developed new work, especially in video and installation.