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Frida Kahlo (1907-1954)

Today a celebration and many congratulations to my wife who has been married for 12,5 years to me. For our honeymoon we travelled to Mexico together with our son Lucas. So for that reason i chose to make a blog on Frida Kahlo, the most famous Mexican artist.

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During the time i was working at the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag we had a show on Frida Kahlo in the Museum Paleis Lange Voorhout in 1993. It was by far the best show, with the highest number of visitors, this little museum has ever had. The show lasted only about 70 days but was extended twice because of the high number of visitors. Mainly women attended the exhibitions and i found out that for them Kahlo was a liberated woman who has been a role model for many. What struck me most in her works were the very personal sometimes even surrealist elements in her paintings and where i had imagined large paintings and works of art , these were in many cases small paintings. Still….a terrific exhibition and the last one to have been organized in the Netherlands in the last 25 years. What remains is the catalogue which is a classic among Kahlo collectors and available at www.ftn-books.com. Last but not least…congratulations to my wife Linda. These were 12,5 years filled with love, travels, fun and health…may the next 12,5 years give the same to us….    Schermafbeelding 2017-04-16 om 09.41.37 Schermafbeelding 2017-04-16 om 10.01.23

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100 years ….DE STIJL

It was 50 years ago Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles was released on the 1st of June, but 50 years before that date the DE STIJL group was founded in Leiden in 1917 with the publishing of the book de NIEUWE BEWEGING IN DE SCHILDERKUNST by Theo van Doesburg. Leiden , Utrecht ( home of the famous Rietveld huis) and Den Haag ( largest Mondrian/de Stijl collection in the world will be presenting exhibitions on DE STIJL and its influence on Modern Art. One basic thing about DE STIJL. Use of primary colors, dividing the surface in abstract elements. Mondrian and van Doesburg were originally friends and worked along these lines until van Doesburg thought his works were limited by the use of horizontal and vertical lines and wanted to use the “diagonal” too. This cooled down the friendship and van Doesburg decided to leave the group in 1924. Was it the end of the DE STIJL…no certainly not . The group stopped, but the ideas were there and were later found in BAUHAUS and constructivist modern art. To acknowledge the importance of DE STIJL is done now by these many exhibitions and certainly more than a few will be well worth visiting. Prepare yourself and look at the many DES TIJL/ Mondrian /van Doesburg publications available at www.ftn-books.com

PS . there is a very special bank by Ko Verzuu in blue and yellow which is exclusively available at ww.ftn-books.com. This was a prestige edition by the makers of ADO.

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Alberto Magnelli (1888-1971)

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Born in Florence / Italy, Magnelli stayed his entire life true to a mix of abstract art mixed with futurism. Not the most likely combination because in a time when his artists friends were making futurist paintings he chose the opposite road and made brightly colored still lives. Still, there are many examples of paintings in one can see shapes and movements appear in them.

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Magnelli has not become the world famous name in art people and admirers had hoped for , but his works show quality and are still showed whenever there is a an exhibition on italian painting of the first half of the 20th century. A nice french catalogue is available at www.ftn-books.com and he is one of the artist who appeared in the catalogues on italian art which were published by the Stedelijk Museum in the 50’s and 60’s.

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Giovanni Nicolai (1984)

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Down under in Italy, in the region of Bari works a young artist by the name of Giovanni Nicolai. I did not know him, never met him, but we recently contacted each other about a purchase. He mailed me that he was a fan of Massimo Rao and because of this fascination was inspired by him which resulted in very personal and somehow typical italian classical portraits. He sent me some examples and i was very much convinced that these works deserve to be known outside Italy too. Therefore this blog with some examples of his works. It is Modern art with some abstraction but also a very classical touch within them.

The small faces  of the portraits resemble a little bit the lean figures by Alberto Giacometti, but the atmosphere breathes Massimo Rao.

Not the surrealist setting of Massimo Rao, but recognizable poetic portraits. Very nice to look at and subtil in their execution. If you want more information on Giovanni Nicolai do not hesitate to contact me and i will gladly supply you with his email address. The publications on Massimo Rao are available at www.ftn-books.com

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Brice Marden (1938)

It took some while for me to appreciate Brice Marden, that was because the first works i encountered by him where his monochromatic paintings, which i did not like very much at that time ( now i do!),  but influenced by Robert Rauschenberg ( he was his assistant during a couple of years) , multi panelled and more colorful paintings began to emerge from his studio.

That was the same period i became interested in Brice Marden. There was a nice exhibition in 1981 in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, which Crouwel designed catalogue is now a true collectors item ( available with other Marden publications at www.ftn-books.com ).

The list of collections in which Brice Marden is present is almost endless and contains all major Modern Art Museums in the world. One has to be mentioned, because The MOMA was the first to present a large retrospective on this young artist. It was in 1975 and this early interest resulted in having one of the largest Marden collections in the world.

 

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