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Anton Pieck in fashion again.

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People from my generation remember the many Post and Christmas cards by Anton Pieck each family received . I even remember my parents chosing a stork with baby in his beak as a birth announcement. Pieck was huge….Piewck was popular and …Pieck stood for the most famous fairy tale park in the Netherlands…..de Efteling….

But after i few decades people got tired of the romantic scenes, populated by Dickens figures. Yes, the “DE EFTELING” attraction park was still there, but only because it had grown into a full blown entertainment park and the fairy tale forrest was almost forgotten.

But some 15 years ago , because some originals fetched excellent prices at auction, people started to notice Anton Pieck again. All because they recognized the quality of his great illustrations and drawings of town scenes and landscapes. There was of course a small  Anton Pieck Museum, but the Frans Hals Museum / de Hallen in Harlem was the first to dedicate a retrospective to Anton Pieck, the artists, in 2008.  A popular well attended exhibition which published a great catalogue together with the exhibition. ( now available at www.ftn-books. com) and these days i am selling Anton Pieck books all over the world and people collect and appreciate them. Anton Pieck is in fashion again.

anton pieck hallen

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Piet Dirkx…the new acquisition “l’Idee”

This is what if ound on this 1991 Piet Dirkx. Signed by Piet and titled “l’idee”.

This work belonged for a long time to the collection of Otto Schaap, who purchaseed it at Galerie Loerakker around 1991. It was part of this collection for nearly 3 decades and now it has found a new home in our collection. This is what we had when unpacked.

 

and this is the complete work presented on two nails as indicated by Piet. 51 cm apart, with the yellow “sandwich” on the right.

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and here it is between some other works by Piet Dirkx.

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for those interested in Piet Dirkx , please note that publications, cigar boxes and paintings are for sale. Please inquire at ftnbooksandart@gmail.com

 

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“A little white lie” by Nico Dijkshoorn

dijkshoorn kunst

In November 2020 I presented a little chapter from Nico Dijkshoorn his book  “KIJKT KUNST” here is another personal view by Dijkshoorn on one of the Kroller Muller Museum highlights. Picasso ” NUDE STANDING 1907-1908″

A LITTLE WHITE LIE

No

really

from here

you can not see

anything

of the white mould

on your

body

 

 

I

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the 3 most famous dollhouses in the Netherlands

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I have experienced that there is a rising international interest in the 3 famous doll houses in the publica collections in the Netherlands. each has its own qualities but they all have in common the exceptional detail which makes these doll houses stand out from all doll houses which were made after these. Furthermore they show in great detail the daily life in the 17th century.

There is of course the most famous of all Sara Rothé doll house which is in the collection of the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag.

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Then there is the doll house owned by Petronella de la Court which is in the collection of the Centraal Museum Utrecht


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and finally the Rijksmuseum owned doll house which was originally owned and palyed by Petronella Oortman.

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there are of course more examples to be found in dutch publica collections , but these are the most famous one of which www.ftn-books.com has of the two first ones classic and important publications.

BTW. these doll houses were not played by children but were in the collections and cherished by adult women.

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Happy New Year…and a healthy 2021

sandberg portret

Dear Reader,

Thanks for your interest in this continuing daily blog. It has been been a year filled with changes and I truly hope next year will be a more normal year and of course a healthy one for you and all your loved ones.

What way to have a better start of the blogs remembering the New Years wishes Willem Sandberg made during his directorship at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.

Each year until the early Sixties he made a yearly New Years wish for the Stedelijk Museum. Recognizable, highly original and in a way only Sandberg could design and make them. I encountered these New Years wishes in a biography which was published in 2004 and written by Ank Leeuw Marcar. In the centre of the book all Sandberg New Years Wishes are assembled. ( available at www.ftn-books.com).

To finish ….My best wishes for you and your loved ones and have a wonderful 2021.

sandberg portret

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Posters by Willem Sandberg and Wim Crouwel…part 4

This week it is the set Wim Crouwel designed for the 1964 Arman exhibition. It was the first Arman show at the Stedelijk Museum and there would be some more to follow, since Willem Sanderg was a fan of Arman and his sculptures.

Both designs are executed in a blazing red color with a transformed and crushed lettering like the sculptures by ARMAN. An absolute beautiful design by Wim Crouwel.

 

but study them closely….. they look the same , but they are not…. there is a differnce in the lettering of the ARMAN name. Botht are available at www.ftn-books.com

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Mark Manders (1968)

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Just to illustrate the work by Mark Manders here follows a text he wrote in 1994.

The Absence of Mark Manders

Under a table you have the possibility to test your own absence. The realization that life is taking its course, even without you, is an intense human experience; it shows the finiteness of personality. Mark Manders has inhabited his self-portrait since 1986. This building can expand or shrink at any moment. In this building all words created by mankind are on hand. The building arises, like words, out of interaction with life and things.

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The thoughts that surround him in his building are, materialized or not, always important and never gratuitous. ‘When years ago I went for a walk, I would walk through streets where sometimes a clothespeg would be lying, or, when I entered a place, there would be a table with, for instance, a telephone and an empty vase, briefly I would find myself in a world that I hadn’t determined myself. I decided to build a building next to that world, or rather, in that world. A building which was dominated by a changing arrest, where and through which I would be confronted continuously with my choice, the choice of Mark Manders.’ Mark Manders considers the world surrounding his building as an evolved organism that has been constructed from so-called semi-truths. These fall as some loose atom-truths in a kind of ‘encyclopaedia basement’, a space of about four by five metres, around which he constructs his building. Herewith, Mark Manders places his self-portrait as a building actually between two world views: the world as constructed from atom-like semi-truths and the one in which these truths are accepted as facts. Often, we are not afraid in our materialized projection, the world itself has been confided to us. I remember how we determined our first priority roads and that diviners (reading the future in liver) indicated the place of the city. Walking through my building, I get confronted everywhere with deep arrest, it is terrific, the things over here surmount my momentaneous thinking and are familiar to me, I never get bored.

Mark Manders, 1994

www.ftn-books.com has some nice Mark Manders publications available

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Nico Dijkshoorn (continued)

Here is another personal observation by Nico Dijkshoorn. This time a painting by Odilon Redon from the Krõller Muller collection. Other books on Redon available at www.ftn-books.com

dijkshoorn rodin

BUDDHA FOR CHILDREN

and Buddha

he picked up a porcupine

wired it

to a battery

and yes

it gave light

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Ørnulf Ranheimsæter (1909-2007)

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Ørnulf Ranheimsæter was a Norwegian illustrator, graphical artist and essayist.

He was born in Skien, and educated at the Norwegian National Academy of Craft and Art Industry, where he also later worked as instructor and eventually professor. He is known for his many book designs, and received the Bokkunstprisen award in 1967 and 1987. He was awarded the Fritt Ord Honorary Award in 1998.

gullberg f
Why this rather obscure , lesser know Norwegian artist?.

The best reason is he illustrated DEN HELIGE NATTEN by Hjalmar Gullberg.  A short story on the Holy Night ( containing 4 original prints). The most appropriate story for today. ( the book is available at www.ftn-books.com)

Merry Christmas!

wilfried

 

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Carroll Dunham (1949)

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Perhaps Carroll Dunham is best known as the father of Lena Dunham, but one look at his works and you will think the same as I did when I first saw his work…..” this is a great artist”

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I love the comic aspects in his works in a way i also like the Al Copley paintings.

 

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He was Initially inspired by Pop Art, Abstract Expressionism, and Surrealism, at the very beginnings of his career, Carroll Dunham painted abstract geometric compositions on a wooden surface. His characteristic was the using of exotic veneers, such was elm, oak, rosewood or pin. Respecting the natural pattern of the surface, he was creating vibrant compositions. Spurred on by the revival of interest in Surrealism in the 1970s, Dunham began to make abstract, biomorphic paintings reminiscent of the work of Arshile Gorky and André Masson, executed with a comic twist enhanced by lurid colours and the suggestion of contemporary psychedelia. Recognizable cartoonish details from his early artistic beginnings turned into the larger formats of bodily shapes resembling lips or teeth recently became more figurative, displaying striking male and female caricatures placed in familiar, but at the same time fictional surroundings.

www.ftn-books.com has the catalogue raisonne of his prints available.