This time i focus on the Frank Stella exhibition from 1970, which was at that time a first for the Stedelijk Museum. A great poster and catalogue designed by Wim Crouwel completed the exhibition, The cover of the catalogue was embossed and this made it very special.
I even had at one time the official invitation ( now sold). A great set and a future collectable classic. available at www.ftn-books.com
Many of you know that www.ftn-books.com has one of the largest inventories with Stedelijk Museum oublications. Publications from as early as the Twenties from last century. The last eight weeks i made an effort to include the many publications i have in stock but did not add to my inventory until now. I have include over 1000 Stedelijk Museum publications which makes my inventory one of the largest “searchable” collections of available Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam publications. Over 900 different itesm are now available at www.ftn-books..com
visit www.ftn-books.com and search for “stedelijk” to discover many of the beautiful publications from this iconic museum.
Jewish born Martin Monnickendam never became known in the Netherlands until two decades ago (1999) the Joods Historisch Museum devoted a retropective exhibition to the artist. He painted every day life and some great interiors of Synagoges in the years just after WWI but with these only reached local fame within the Jewish community. It was not until the DE BERGENSE SCHOOL grew in popularity that the name Monnickendam surfaced again together with Kees Maks. Both artists were fond of depicting daily life of the “well to do” . Making paintings of people in theatres, circus and restaurants. These paintings reflect how the dutch spend their days and free time in the early decades of the 20th century. He died in 1945 of pneumonia leaving an oeuvre that deserves to be re discovered.
In these times of the closure of dutch museums due to the COVID-19 measures. Many of the dutch museums find alternative ways to present themselves on the internet and make their exhibitions available to their public. One of them i would like to point out is the van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven who have their exhibition ‘ BODYWORK” made available in a virtual tour. For those interested here is the link:
https://vanabbemuseum.nl/onderzoek/uitgelichte-projecten/virtuele-tour-bodywork/
and for those “old school” visitors, www.ftn-books.com has many van Abbemuseum catalogues available in its inventory
An artist who i did not know, but because of the excellent catalogue published by the Hein Elferink gallery in 2006 i learned to know and discover ( http://www.luchoekx.be). Luc Hoekx. A long career and some great places he exhibited at passing by without being noticed by me. Entirely my fault of course, but his exhibitions in the Netherlands were scarce . In retrospect i could only discover two. One in Helmond and the other in Staphorst. Not the worldly places one visits to find some great art. But now , because of the Elferink catalogue, i discovered an artist who’s art i like and that made me sent him a message to inquire after 2 works that were on his site.
So let ‘s wait and hope that these are reasonable priced, if not……no problem it takes some years but eventually something will come to the market and who knows it will be mine after the final bid.
The following excerpt comes from Wikipedia, because in a few sentences it explains what Leiteritz works stands for and means for art in general, but…..
I have made a small study of Leiteritz and her works and when you look at these you can see that her works are a link between the Bauhaus of Kandinsky and the hard edge paintings of Kelly. In between somme 40 Years but her works bridge this period perfectly. Somewhere between the Bauhaus Kandinsky and the hard Edge Kelly from the Seventies you must place Leiteritz, because she transformed herself into an artist who embraced abstraction and made rythm part of her paintings . Her works are definetely inspired by rythm and music.
Margaret Leiteritz (1907–1976) was a German painter who studied at the Bauhaus in Dessau from 1928 to 1931.[1]
In the 1960s and early 1970s, Leiteritz produced ‘painted diagrams’, which drew heavily from the scientific articles and books in her care as she was a professional librarian before becoming a painter.
Many of her works were strongly influenced by chemical engineering, and especially the field’s graphs which depicted physical properties of substances. Leiteritz’s paintings typically reworked a mundane graph using large expanses of colour and a bold abstract theme, changing it into a dynamic painting. Other works are reminiscent of Bunsen burner flame or DNA gel.
Edward Quinn, or “Ted” as his family called him, was born 1920 in Ireland. Starting in the 1950s, he lived and worked as a photographer on the Côte d’Azur, which was a playground for celebrities from the world of show biz, art and business during the “Golden Fifties”. The rich and famous came to the Riviera to relax. But the movie stars recognized the importance of their off-screen image, and Quinn was in the right place at the right time, managing to capture spontaneous and enchanting images that documented the charm, sophistication and chic of a legendary era.
In 1951, Edward Quinn met and photographed Pablo Picasso for the first time. Their friendship lasted until Picasso’s death in 1973. This encounter with Picasso had a lasting influence on Quinn, both personally and in regard to his subsequent work. Quinn is the author of several books and films about Picasso.
Starting in the 1960s, Quinn concentrated his professional activities on artists, photographing such figures as Max Ernst, Alexander Calder, Francis Bacon, Salvador Dalí, Graham Sutherland and David Hockney. In the late 1980s, a close relationship – similar to his friendship with Picasso – developed between Quinn and Georg Baselitz.
From 1992 until his death in 1997, Edward Quinn lived in Altendorf near Zurich with his Swiss wife Gret. She passed away in 2011.
There was a special exhibion of the Quinn photographs he made of Pablo PIcasso at the Quadrat Museum in Bottrop. The exhibition poster is available at www.ftn-books.com
There are not many Polish artists who have made a name for themselves in the western art world. But since a few decades some Polish artists emerge in the established museums in western Europe and Malczewski is one of them. He was presented in a retropective exhibition at the Drents Museum in 2003 and for me it was the first time i heard of this Polish artis and saw some of his better works. He is considered to be a symbolist painter and he certainly is, but in my opnion he more is a realistic artist who paints and draws every day life and people from his surroundings but frames them in a symbolistic way.
There is hardly any symbolism in the foreground of his art and the people he depicts, but look at his paintings and you will discover that there is symbolism and symbolistic elements, everywhere and even at some moments complete symbolic scenes in the background. This is how good art has to be and this is certainly true for Malczewski’s art. To discover this Polish artist the Drents Museum catalogue is a perfect starting point.
The Drents Museum catalogue is now available at www.ftn-books.com
Just leaving the path of Crouwel /Sandberg designed posters for this Daniel Spoerri designed extraordinary poster for his 1971 exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum. In the early Seventies the Stedelijk Museum commissioned some of the exhibiting artist to design their own publicity posters . Tinguely was one of them and so was Daniel Spoerri, who made one of the very best Seventies posters ever. Just for your self…..
Together with the exhibition, 2 publications were published , both designed by Wim Crouwel. All three items are now availablel at www.ftn-books.com
Born in DEN HAAG too, van Hoytema was one of the first artists I encountered in the collection of the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. A bird artis “pur sang” who is considered to be one of the founding members of the Art Nouveau movement in the Netherlands.
I have lost my interest in the artist and the Art Nouveau period, because I shifted my interest towards modern art, but the fact remains that the artists and his illustrated books and calendars are still very popular among collectors worldwide. In the time i worked at the Gemeentemuseum I had a yearly contact with Mrs. Schoonderbeek who published through the years all Hoytema material including a famous yearly calendar. Edition run ….over 100.000 each year and this made it possible for her to publish van Hoytema until some 20 years when she had to stop. Now i have found a delightful book on van Hoytema and his calendar and it shows exactly why his calendars stayed popular through the years.
The book is now available at www.ftn-books.com
