This time a double bill of Renato Guttuso and Alan Davie. Two exhibions both held at the Stedelijk Museum at the end of 1962. It is rumored that this poster was designed by Sandberg , but the execution of it done by ten Have. Still i love this poster .. The red and green indicate the hand of Sandberg and the simplicity of it makes this a highly important historical poster for the Stedelijk Museum. Both poster and catalogues of the exhibitions are available at www.ftn-books.com
After 1989 there was a change in the relationship between Western Europe and Russia. The result of an exchange of exhibitions and the beginning of a fruitful collaboration between the Russian State museums and the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag.
There was, of course, a highly successful and visited in large numbers Pusjkin collection exhibition and on a much smaller scale a few years later the Russian Avant-Garde exhibition at the Paleis Lange Voorhout Museum curated by Franz Kaiser. An exquisite exhibition with a selection chosen from the Abram Chudnovsky collection. personally i think this was, after the Malevich exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum a few years earlier, an exhibition which showed the quality of Russian art in the beginning of 20th Century. Great paintings from a visionary collector who collected his fellow country men and since never has been seen again in one of the European Museums. The catalogue of this exhibition and both other catalogues are now available at www.ftn-books.com.
Together with Rie Cramer she became one of the foremost (female) illustrators in the Netherlands. Her style, personal but a typical derivate of the great Art Deco drawings she had seen in her youth. Open, colorful and more detailed when compared with the best work of Rie Cramer and rooted and inspired by her birth province Zeeland where she draws inspiration from.
The Zeeuwse Bibliotheek held an exhibition in 2010 and published together with ~ZOO a great book on Ella Riemersma which is now available at www.ftn-books.com.
There are not that many artists that have emerged from India and made a name for their selves in western art, but Nasreen Mohamedi is certainly one of them. Crown on her exhibition history was the REINA SOFIA exhibition in 2014 ( book available at www.ftn-books.com ). At this occasion, a large number of her line drawings and paintings were for the first time to be seen in Europe and with this exhibition she established her self as being one of the truly visionary original artist coming from outside the western art world.
Born in Karachi in 1937, before moving to Mumbai in her youth, and living and teaching in Vadodara until her final days, Mohamedi remains one of the most under-recognised artists of the 20th century. At the time when Indian Modernists were painting the colours and chaos of their homeland, Mohamedi worked alongside peers such as MF Husain, Tyeb Mehta and VS Gaitonde. Yet she was virtually alone amongst her peers because she broke away from the mainstream practice of figurative painting in post-Independence India. She has often been compared to Canadian abstract painter Agnes Martin and American minimalist Carl Andre. “‘Nasreen Mohamedi’ reveals the artist’s significant contribution to Modernism that expands the boundaries of Western art history and offers an opportunity to reconsider the meaning of abstract art,” reads the exhibition note. Mohamedi passed away at 53 in 1990, from a rare neurological disorder.
The obscurity in relation to the chronology and description of Mohamedi’s works have confounded curators and art historians. Her evolving language is seen through early abstract brushwork and figurative oil and watercolour, to her grid-based drawings and those in pen and ink.
While her line drawings are the most popular aspect of her oeuvre, what is also fascinating is Mohamedi’s photographic prints, known for their unique architectural quality. A well-travelled artist, Mohamedi took photographs in several places in the Middle East (she lived in Bahrain briefly in her youth), the US and Japan, apart from various cities in India including Chandigarh. her photographs, which highlight geometric shapes and lines in her surroundings through particular crops, mirrored how Mondrian began his path to abstraction, a reason why the two exhibitions will open simultaneously.
Another significant aspect is Mohamedi’s diaries, which reveals the artist’s mind at work. On display at Tate Liverpool are extracts, notes and source material she kept in her studio.
“I enjoy drawing animals”, says Loustal. His illustrations confirm this. In the comic-strip squares that feature African settings, sinuous lizards adorn the walls. His amazing “dog-pig-hyena” hybrid has become a signature. Now, with “Bestiaire”, a portfolio comprising 7 screen-print plates, Loustal pursues a theme that has long fascinated him. The result is an ode to graphic art and a tender exercise embracing fantasy and wit.
The ” BESTIAIRE” portfolio, published in 1993 by Champaka is now available at www. ftn-books.com
JAN DE BEUS.. for most this is not a very familiar name in art, but he works. The final result de Beus compares with an orgastic feeling. Nothing must be added. the work is finished. If you have a 30 minutes to spare you can see a work in progress and an interview with de Beus. The works by de Beus are permanently shown at Wolterinck.
The work of Jan de Beus is typified by expressive imagery of cultural-historical pieces such as literary stories, famous pieces of music, classic mythology and the Bible. All of his paintings are characterised by crude, spontaneous gestures and some are of only one colour, or just nuances of a colour, whilst others are made up of different colours.
www.ftn-bookds.com has a nicer book on de beus availabl
I know of some dutch photographers who specialize in photography of art objects and catalogues. There are Gerrit Schreurs and Erik and Petra Hesmerg of course, but i had never heard of Lee Boltin. Reading about him i learned that he photographed one of the most iconic exhibitions from the 20th Century. Boltin documented the Tutanchamon exhibition and its objects. This was new to me , because the reason of this blog was a recent addition on signs and other letter related photographs he made during the Fifties in his home town New York. I liked the book and its photographs and beside being a historical document it is also a highly collectable book from a great photographer. so i bought it and it is now for sale at www.ftn-books.com
Mr. Boltin photographed several important exhibitions and collections, including the contents of the ancient Egyptian king Tutankhamen’s tomb for the book “Tutankhamen: The Tomb and Its Treasures” in 1977, and the Nelson A. Rockefeller collection, which was the subject of “Masterpieces of Primitive Art,” published in 1978.
Born in New York City in 1917, Mr. Bolton trained at the American Museum of Natural History, where his early photographs focused on pre-Columbian and Eskimo art. In 1954 he left the museum to work on his own. His photographs have appeared in museums around the United States and in Europe, as well as in art books and other publications.
Another iconic duo from the early Sixties is the Wim Crouwel designed poster for the Etienne martin exhibition in 1963 and the catalogue he did design for the same exhibition. The catalogue is still influenced by the designs of Willem Sandberg, but the poster is completely different and a 100% Wim Crouwel design. The Martin poster has become the starting point of a series of iconic posters he made for the Stedelijk Museum. Both publications are now available at www.ftn-books.com.
year 1987
from left to right: Klaasje Vrooon, Lauren Schijvens, Marianne Theunissen, Hans Ensink op Kemna, Beatrix, Hewald Jongenelis, Jacqueline Peeters.
This is the last blog on this historic series of price winners of the prestigious SUBSIDIE VOOR VRIJE SCHILDERKUNST
year 1986
from left to right: Jan van den Dobbelsteen, Michiel Duvekot, Steven Aalders, Bart Domburg, Diederick van Kleef, Gerard Kodde
