Category: Geen categorie

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Thijs Rinsema (1877-1947)

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This Frysian artist is by most known for his DADA works he made in te beginning of his career, but he searched for a much wider appreciation and therefore changed his style into a much more figurative style.

Far less interesting, but probably a necessary step to survive as an artist. I looked into the history of Rinsema and found some interesting works which are still exhibited in the Museums in the Northern Provinces of the Netherlands, but the best exhibition was held a long time ago at the Nijmeegs Museum in 1972 for which exhibition an excellent catalogue was published , designed by Harrie Gerritz who found a loyal following of admirers soon after for his playfulk and colourful abstract compositions. This catalogue is available at ww.ftn-books.com

This catalogue is a cclassic for the Sixties and Seventies with sobre style, minimalistic designdoes it stand as a great dutch design.

stichting nijmeegs

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Franco Pinna (1925-1978)

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Without knowing who the photographer was i have encountered , many, many photographs by Pinna in the time i read the PARIS MATCH. Studying french i had to read the language, which meant that i bought weekly the Paris Match. Pinna’s photographs are easily recognizable and have a signature of their own.

He was born in La Maddalena, on July 29, 1925. In 1952 he moved to Rome and, after a brief experience as a cinedocumentary operator, constituted the cooperative Fotografi Associati together with Plinio De Martiis, Caio Mario Garrubba, Nicola Sansone, Pablo Volta, which was dissolved in 1954 due to economic difficulties. He followed the anthropologist Ernesto De Martino during several research expeditions in southern Italy (Lucania, 1952, 1956, 1959, Salento 1959), obtaining documents of great artistic and cultural value. In 1959 he published his first book, entitled La Sila, which was followed by Sardegna una civiltà di pietra (Sardinia, a stone civilization) (1961). Meanwhile, his photos appear in the magazines Life, Stern, Sunday Times, Vogue, Paris Match, Epoca, L’espresso, Panorama. From 1965 Pinna became the trusted photographer of Federico Fellini and made scene photos of his films Giulietta degli spiriti, 1965, up to Fellini’s Casanova in 1976; he also publishes some photo books (I Clowns, Fellini’s Film) inspired by his films. He died suddenly in Rome on April 2, 1978.

www.ftn-books.compinna has a nice italian publication on Pinna available.

 

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Heinrich Campendonk (1889-1957)

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Heinrich Campendonk was not unknown to me , but my time at the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, made me much more aware of the qualities Campendonk had as a painter. Being a member of DER BLAUE REITER made me study his work more than average since i love the works by the artist of this group of painters.

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Campendonk was the son of a textile merchant, stopped his textile apprenticeship in 1905. From 1905 – 1909, he received artistic education from Johan Thorn Prikker, a very progressive school for arts and crafts at the time. He became friends with Helmuth Macke, August Macke, Wilhelm Wieger, Franz Marc and Paul Klee during this time. He was born in Krefeld. He was a member of the Der Blaue Reiter group, from 1911 to 1912. When the Nazi regime came to power in 1933, he was among the many modernists condemned as degenerate artists, and prohibited from exhibiting. He moved to the Netherlands, where he spent the rest of his life working at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, first teaching Decorative Art, printmaking and stained-glass, then as the Academy Director.He died as a naturalized Dutchman.

www.ftn-books.com has some nice Campendonk publications available.

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Klaar van der Lippe (1961)

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I knew the name and person of Klaar van der Lippe, because of her presence in a dutch survival television series, but it was not until 4 years ago that i came across a publication on van der Lippe published with in the series on new dutch sculptors ( also Baerveldt). The book shows in an excellent way why her works is important. In an almost casual way she alters her surroundings. Rearranging, replacing almost everything within sight , creating a new space and sculpting it into something very “Klaar van der Lippe”. The book which is now for sale at www.ftn-books.com shows some of these projects .

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Philippe Hiquily (1925-2013)

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I came accross this artist some years ago when i go interested in sculpture from the mid sixties. Chadwick, Jacobson and certainly Alecxander Calder were my heroes, but then there was also Hiquily …….Philippe Hiquily was a French artist and designer known for biomorphic furniture and sculptures. He was able to combine modernist design, insect physiognomy, and human sexuality, to produce unique Surrealist works. Born on March 27, 1925 in Paris, France, he attended the École des Beaux-Arts in Orléans and later the École Supérieure des Beaux Arts in Paris. In Paris, Hiquily mingled with prominent artists, including Jean Tinguely and Germaine Richier. In 1959, he received the Critic’s Prize for his sculpture at the Paris Biennial. That same year, he showed work at New York-based gallery The Contemporaries, where he met the American artist Robert Rauschenberg. Hiquily died on his 88th birthday on March 27, 2013 in Villejuif, France. Today, his works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Montreal.

Now i have finally a very nice publication on Hiquily in my inventory available. Silkscreened cover and very well worth collecting.

hiquily

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Kriki / Christian Vallee (1965)

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Punk, Underground/Metro, music, resistance, grafiti, painting, street art.-

All these words are related to the artist Kriki who made a name for himself in the Paris art scene in the mid Eighties.

In 1984, in Paris, Kriki founds a group of painters called Nuklé-Art and the electro punk group Les Envahisseurs. With the street and the Underground as his art school, he is involved in the beginnings of what is now known as Street Art. Immersed in alternative culture, he is identified from the beginning as one of the emblematic figures amongst the young French painters of the nineteen eighties. Kriki clearly belongs to the generation whose sensibility expressed itself in Free Figurative Art, which he helps to renew. Still very young, he exhibits with Keith Haring, Futura 2000 and even with Basquiat and Wim Delvoye. At just 23 years old, he has his first solo exhibition at FIAC (Paris) which will then move on to the Gramercy Art Fair in New York; this will lead to taking part in the very first exhibitions of his work in now famous Paris galleries such as Jérôme de Noirmont and Kamel Mennour. Kriki at that time becomes well known for a style which becomes immediately identifiable on the international scene, making him into one of the major artists of his generation.

In 1985, Kriki invents Fuzz, a half-robot, half polymorphous fetish, appearing as a virus infecting the history of art, and of which the Museum of Modern Art in Paris will publish a specimen. Kriki manipulates the original images from which his paintings emerge, resisting our initial attempts at a reading in order to express themselves in a universal language. Today, Kriki is still an incarnation of punk culture in French contemporary art, leading Ernest Van Buyender, the Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp to write: “Kriki is the only French artist whose originality and ambition can be seen as a bridge between Sub Culture and High Culture”. www.ftn-books.com has one rare Kriki publication available.kriki

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De voorstelling begint op straat!

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This has been one of the highlights from the past year. A book i did not know was published but a true treasure trove. The book dates back from 2001 and shows the history of 10 years of “Stage” posters. These are done by the very best of dutch (poster) designers. To name a few Anthon Beeke, Jan Bons, Joost Swarte, Lex Reitsma, Marten Jongema. A beautiful published book. BIS published these posters on a larger sized format. Giving these the best possible size in a still reasonably sized book . The book contains the very best of 10 years of posters starting in 1991 and ending in 2001. This book is now in my personal book case and i am glad to give this a place in my personal collection until it sells…..i love it!

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Sixties Magazine TWEN/TABOE with Ed van der Elsken

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If you want to know what the Sixties looked like for the youth in the Netherlands, there are 3 magazines you must study. First there is the TIQ magazine. It is now one of the hardest to find magazines in the world, since few numbers were published and because of its controversial contents not to many survived.,….. and then there is TWEN/ TABOE. This is the “progressive” dutch youth showing their interests and sharing this with one of the most important Sixties magazines worldwide. Of course this is my personal idea about this magazine, but it is not without reason that i think this is important. One of the most prominent “house” photographers for TWEN/TABOE was Ed van der Elsken and he literally almost filled the pages of the magazines all by himself with his iconic photographs. Leafing through the special book which was published on the Magazine TWEN, which name had to be changed in TABOE after the german Springer publishing company forced by summary proceedings to do so. TWEN/ TABOE history is short. At the end of 1961 and the beginning of 1961 only 4 magazines were published , but they have proven to be a true historic and cultural document.

The integral publications of these 4 magazines is now available at www.ftn-books.com

twen taboe

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Jopie Huisman (1922-2000)

 

Schermafbeelding 2019-08-23 om 14.31.45There was a time that i travelled all over the Netherlands and Germany to get inspiration for the perfect museumshop. Rudi Fuchs wanted a Walter König like bookstore within the walls of the Gemeentemuseum and i personally wanted to see and experience what the best solution could be. I was impressed with the Cologne/ Museum Ludwig and we made an interpretation of that store within the Gemeentemuseum. Many ideas that are now applied to the store were developed within those days and some have even disappeared already. One of the best ideas was to make the store visible from within the museum rooms which was realized now some 14 years ago and the result  i think  is that it is one of the best ideas for this particular store . On one of these travels i found myself in the middle of nowhere at the Jopies Huisman museum in Workum/Friesland. It felt like i travelled to South Africa. No easy connections , but the result was a visit to a highly original museum , totally devoted to Jopie Huisman, a self taught painter . beautiful realistic works of ordinay daily life objects which he found in his direct surroundings.

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Jopie gave the people honour he felt they deserved. His paintings, whether they are about people or about their belongings, are a homage to the simple Frisian rural farm life, the landscape and the culture. The portraits are monuments to simple things.

Jopie’s artwork does not only possess the recognition and acknowledgement of poverty but also a lot of humour. The humour between people who, driven by circumstance, have to rely on one another. For Jopie, humour was the grease and glue of his life. In the stories he wrote, humour is also clearly present. When you read them, you are actually reading behind the scenes of his paintings.

Jopie’s eye for the absurd, for human proportions and relationships can be found in many of his written or painted caricatures. Recognition was and is above all, a comfort to many visitors as we can see by their reactions.

Jopie was fascinated by daily life which he drank in with great gusto and, as he remarked himself, ‘threw down on canvas’. He poured his soul into his art with great doggedness, perseverance and tenacity. He understood the art of rubbing shoulders with people from all different walks of life like no other.What makes Jopie Huisman so unique is the fact that he was able to illustrate his philosophy of life with so much vigour and with so much feeling and energy. His works are a combination of philosophy, aesthetics and phenomenal art. His message of compassion is universal and timeless.

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This book is now available at www.ftn-books.com

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de Tilburgse School, Delta Lloyd 2002

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Another short blog on one of the most important art collectives in the Netherlands. The importance of the “De Tilburgse School” school is growing more and more by the year. Marc Mulders , Paul van Dongen, Guido Geelen, Reinoud van Vught and Ronald Zuurmond are recognized as being of great importance to dutch modern art. Some years ago i wrote another blog on DE TILBURGSE SCHOOL , explaining their art was rooted within religion, but more and more they are liberating themselves from religious themes. The catalogue which was published by Delta Lloyd on the occasion of the 2002 exhibition shows this in an excellent way. The catalogue is not that thick. Only 28 pages , but it is a beautifully designed book by Maarten Meevis, printed by the quality printers of Lecturis, Making this a highly collectable and important exhibition catalogue.

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