photography – Page 14

Posted on 22.07.201711.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

George Hendrik Breitner (1857-1923)

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What makes this painter so special for me?… Possibly because he made one of the paintings i truly admired when i was young.

One of the first times i visited the Rijskmuseum and the Stedelijk Museum i encountered this beautiful woman, lying on a couch, wearing nothing but a red japanese kimono. Everything is the paintings was new to me. Dutch impressionism, the loose touch with the brush, the high details and the sensuality in the painting made it beautiful to me. What i did not know at that time, is that Breitner was one of the first to use photography as a start for his paintings and this girl in a red kimono ( name was Geesje Kwak , a famous model at that time) would be painted in many versions and depicted on many paintings. There are “Red Kimono” paintings in the collections of the Rijksmuseum, Stedelijk Museum, Museum Twenthe, Teylers Museum. A few years ago there was this exhibition in the Rijksmuseum on all these versions of the girl in the red kimono. Unfortunately i did not visit it , but i still have some excellent catalogues on Breitner available at www. ftn-books.com and study this wonderful painting.

https://youtu.be/rWwWtKRnFMs

These and other titles on Breitner are available at www. ftn-books.com

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Posted on 20.07.201711.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Eva Besnyö (1910-2003)

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Born in Hungary, educated by Pecsi and advized to continue her education in Berlin she met John Fernhout, the son of Charley Toorop and married him and became a dutch citizen. She worked and lived practically her entire life in the Netherlands and because of the contacts she made through her husband she became one of the most important artist photographers of her time. She contributed to many publications with her excellent photographs and for the DOLLE MINA movement ( Womens Liberation movement) she was the house photographer. Personally i find her 50’s and early sixties photographs the most intriguing . They stand out from the rest. I was surprised to find so many books with her photographs in my inventory but one has to be mentioned separately. Eva Besnyö in Bergen is special.

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For more Eva Besnyö search at www.ftn-books.com on Besnyo and find more

Posted on 05.07.201711.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Gerard Petrus Fieret (1924-2009)

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Because i visited the Gemeentemuseum on Sunday and i had another hour available i decided to visit the Fieret exhibition in the GEM museum next door , curated in an excellent way by Wim van Sinderen and giving more insight in the person Fieret was and the art/photographs he made. When you have finished the exhibition and continue within the GEM and go downstairs you pass a long corridor in which the portraits of Fieret, which were taken throughout his life are presented. Portraits by Willem Diepraam, Koos Breukel, Helena van der Kraan and many others make a great portrait gallery on Gerard Petrus Fieret. Of course this is not the best quality, but here are the photographs. They give a great impression of the colorful figure Fieret was.

For publications on Fieret please visit www.ftn-books.com

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Posted on 01.07.201711.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Walter Dahn (1954)….almost forgotten

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Beside a gifted painter and belonging to the JUNGE WILDEN movement and member of the Mülheimer Freiheit in Germany in the Eighties, Dahn is also known as a photographer and a musician. In the eighties he was invited for exhibitions all over Europe and in the Netherland the Groninger Museum presented his works on several occasions, but in the Nineties and Zero’s the art of Dahn became almost extinct and the artist Walter Dahn disappeared from the art radar completely. Nowhere his art was shown and only an occasional gallery presented his new works. Personally i do not think this is fair, because his art is highly recognizable and sometimes shows great quality.

I like his art and maybe he will be appreciated once again when time passes and the JUNGE WILDEN painters like Fetting, Dahn and Bach will be reestablished as the great German painters they onmce were considered. Until that time you have to rely on the publications from the 80’s and 90’s that are available at www.ftn-books.com

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Posted on 28.06.201711.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Nan Goldin (1953) and Boris Mikhailov (1938)…”Grunge” photographers

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With her publication THE BALLAD OF SEXUAL DEPENDENCY Goldin became the photographer of the LGBT community. Her photographs are rarely staged , but are set up in a documentary style. Because of their content,( drug abuse, heroin, death, alcohol and mistreatment) these photographs are in many cases unpleasant to look at as is the same with the photographs by Mikhailov. They can be compared with the photographs by Boris Mikhailov, who in the same decade photographed the less fortunate in Russian society. Both have won the Hasselblad award for photography and will be remembered for the excellent way they portrayed the people and society around them. Publications by Nan Goldin are available at www.ftn-books.com

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Posted on 24.06.201711.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

David Salle (1952)

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David Salle…..still one of te great names in Modern Art and still very famous in the US, but his works tend to be forgotten a little bit in Europe after he had had many important shows here in the eighties and nineties. Painter, graphic artist, cinema director and photographer Salle is a multi disciplined artist who was one of the first living artist who reached star status in the art world after his works were soled for over a million dollar at auction. Personally i do not think any painting is worth so much money, because i think art is to be consumed and admired and not bought or sold as an investment. An artist who’s works are bought after he/she died is an exception. The works have proven themselves and it is important for museum to show the works of an artist in relation to other works of art, but….for living artists like Salle, Hirst and Koons ART has become a way of making money ( and a lot if it). The idea behind the work is less important than the interest t should create with buyers and investors. So my advice …buy what you personally think is worth to look at, admire and collect it and if it is more expensive … pay a little more for it because you will enjoy the work every day you look at it.

Books on Salle are available at www.ftn-books.com

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Posted on 07.06.201711.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Rineke Dijkstra (1959)

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If there is one photographer who has become famous in the last 2 decades it is Rineke Dijkstra. She started as a freelance photographer for magazines like Avenue and Quote, but became famous with her series if you men and women on the beaches of the US, Poland, Belgium and Croatia. This series has become iconic in the world of photography and the star of Rineke Dijkstra has risen ever since. The series shows in artificial light young adolescent boys and girls on the shore. These photographs have are typical Dijkstra “signature” and can be recognized immediately. The strength in these photographs of young people and also the series of bullfighters and soldiers, is that they show the emotion of the portrayed. Large sized in many cases make these not the standard photograph for at home, but you can seen many of her works depicted in the books on Dijkstra of which some are available at www.ftn-books.com

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Posted on 17.05.201711.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Joel Peter Witkin (1939) and Erwin Olaf (1959)

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1983, well before the fame and celebrity status of Erwin Olaf, there was this photographer who was presented in an exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum…Joel Peter Witkin was his name and his photographs balanced between absurd realism and surrealism. The same kind of photographs Erwin Olaf made in one of his first series CHESSMAN (1988). This series must have been strongly inspired by Witkin, since it depicts the same kind of absurd subjects, props and even the tone/color and atmosphere in the photographs are the same.

This series by Olaf was the first to make his work known among collectors and since, he has developed a style of his own, with completely staged photographs with a typical sixties/seventies atmosphere, but if you think his first series CHESS MEN was original and typically Erwin Olaf, than first have a look at Joel Peter Witkin and than judge again. Both mentioned publications and others on Witkin and Olaf are available at www.ftn-books.com.

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Posted on 11.05.201711.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Wols (1913-1951)

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Wols is the pseudonym of Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze. Wols is not very well known by many, but if you ask among curators…. who is the the best Lyrical Abstract painter in the world?….. There is over 50% chance they will mention WOLS as being the most important one. Not only a painter , but also a very gifted photographer, Wols is possibly the artist which i learned to appreciate the most over the past 4 decades. In the beginning i did not understand his art at all, but when you see more of his art in relation to what others did at that time you notce that his art was “new” and intuitive and his photographs had a surreal quality in them. Wols is an artist you will discover in the coming years , because worldwide several shows with his art are planned . Wols is an artist to be discovered, his art is in many ways fascinating and even rooted in religious art. And because i myself am a Wols admirer i managed to collect a nice inventory with Wols publications There are some nice Wols publications which are available at www.ftn-books.com . You may find an excellent article on Wols at http://glasstire.com/2013/12/06/wols-a-misinterpretation/

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Posted on 07.05.201711.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Robert Mapplethorpe in KUNSTHAL/ Rotterdam.

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An important exhibition in KUNSTHAL / Rotterdam. To be shown until the 27th of August there is a large Retrospective on Robert Mapplethorpe, one of the great photographers from last century who died sadly from HIV in 1989.

https://www.kunsthal.nl/nl/plan-je-bezoek/tentoonstellingen/robert-mapplethorpe/

Robert Mapplethorpe ( November 4, 1946 – March 9, 1989) was an American photographer, known for his sensitive yet blunt treatment of controversial subject-matter in the large-scale, highly stylized black and white medium of photography. His work featured an array of subjects, including celebrity portraits, male and female nudes, self-portraits and still-life images of flowers. His most controversial work is that of the underground BDSM scene in the late 1960s and early 1970s of New York City. The homoeroticism of this work fueled a national debate over the public funding of controversial artwork.

This is the text which Wikipedia uses to describe Mapplethorpe in a nutshell, but what is less known is that Mapplethorpe exhibitions were held in the Netherlands at a very early stage of his career in galerie Jurka. His earliest exhibition over there was in 1979, well before his works were collected and appreciated by many.

1979

“Robert Mapplethorpe: 1970-75,” Robert Samuel Gallery, New York

Texas Gallery, Houston, Texas

“Contact,” Robert Miller Gallery, New York

Galerie Jurka, Amsterdam

“Trade Off,” International Center of Photography, New Y

1978

La Remise du Parc Gallery, Paris

“Film and Stills,” Robert Miller Gallery, New York

The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Virginia

Langton Street Gallery, San Francisco, California

Simon Lowinsky Gallery, San Francisco, California

La Remise du Parc Gallery, Paris

Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California

1977

“Portraits,”Holly Solomon Gallery, New York

“Flowers,” Holly Solomon Gallery, New York

“Erotic Pictures,” The Kitchen, New York

1976

“Polaroids,”Light Gallery, New York

This exhibition means his photographs will come back to the Netherlands and one can see for himself what development and progression Mapplethorpe has made since his first exhibitions over here. And yes… the Jurka catalogue from 1980 is available at www.ftn-books.com