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Katharina Duwe and Johannes Duwe (1)

Because of the publication KUNST IM LANDTAG: PAARE on Katharina and Johannes Duwe I was inspired to devote a series of blogs to famous artist couples. Here is the first one. Not so famous this couple, but at the time of the publication ( available at www.ftn-books.com) presented as an artist couple at the DER LANDTAG venue. Of these two i have a personal preference….of these two i like Katharina over Johannes, but both have their own qualities.

Johannes Duwe was born in 1956 and was primarily inspired by the 1970s. Conceptualism is often perceived as a response to Minimalism, and the dominant art movement of the 1970s, challenging the boundaries of art with its revolutionary features. The movements that ensued were all representative of a strong desire to progress and consolidate the art world, in response to the tensions of the previous 1960s. Process art branched out from Conceptualism, featuring some of its most essential aspects, but going further in creating mysterious and experimental artistic journeys, while Land Art brought creation to the outsides, initiating early philosophies of environmentalism. In Germany, Expressive figure painting was given a second chance for the first time since the decline of Abstract Expressionism almost two decades, the genre regained its distinction through the brushstrokes of Gerhard Richter, Anselm Kiefer and Georg Baselitz. The cosmopolitan and refined position that New York city held in the 1960s remained just as influential in the 1970s. With multiple international renowned artists gravitating the galleries and downtown scene, the city once again strengthened its reputation as the artistic hub of the era. Across the globe, numerous movements defined the 1970s. Amongst others, feminism and the new radical philosophies it occasioned strongly influenced the visual culture. Photorealism, which had emerged in the 1960s, also received critical and commercial success. The critical, prominent artistic pillars of New York city started to embrace painters and sculptors from Latin America.

duwe paare

 

 

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Felix Bracquemond (1833-1914)

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Bracquemond just died start of WW I. Had he lived through these war years i am sure he would have made series on the war like Goya and Dix did, but since he never witnessed the true horrors of the “GREAT WAR” he was stuck in semi impressionist and art nouveau art. Still, such a description does not do justice to the artist that Bracquemond was. His technique is flawless and his art can be recognized immediately. Of course, he was a contemporary of Vincent van Gogh and this must be the reason the van Gogh Museum devoted an exhibition to Bracquemond in 1994. This was the 3rd exhibition in their series of 19th Century Masters. The catalogue is well worth collecting and now available at www.ftn-books.com

bracquemond gogh

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Posters by Willem Sandberg and Wim Crouwel…part 2

Another impressive poster by Willem Sandberg for a series of 1962 exhibitions. Among these the first presentation of works by Philip Guston.

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of these the published catalogues look quite different. All publication are available at www.ftn-books.com.

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Dr. Erich Salomon ( 1886-1944)

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Erich Salomon (28 April 1886 – 7 July 1944) was a German-born news photographer known for his pictures in the diplomatic and legal professions and the innovative methods he used to acquire them.

Erich Salomon memorial Born in Berlin, Salomon studied law, engineering, and zoology up to World War I. After the war, he worked in the promotion department of the Ullstein publishing empire designing their billboard advertisements. He first picked up a camera in 1927, when he was 41, to document some legal disputes and soon after hid an Ermanox camera usable in dim light in his bowler hat. By cutting a hole in the hat for the lens, Salomon snapped a photo of a police killer on trial in a Berlin criminal court.

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Beginning in 1928, Salomon worked for Ullstein’s Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung as a photographer. With his multilingual ability and clever concealment, his reputation soared among the people of Europe. When the Kellogg-Briand Pact was signed in 1928, Salomon walked into the signing room and took the vacant seat of the Polish delegate, and took several photos. He is one of only two known persons to have photographed a session of the U.S. Supreme Court.[1]

After Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, Salomon fled to the Netherlands with his wife and continued his photographic career in The Hague. Salomon declined an invitation from Life Magazine to move to the United States. He and his family were trapped in the Low Countries after Germany invaded in 1940. Salomon and his family were held in the Westerbork transit camp, then for almost five months in Theresienstadt concentration camp and were deported from there to the Theresienstadt Family Camp in May 1944. He died in Auschwitz on 7 July 1944.

The Dr. Erich Salomon Award is a lifetime achievement award for photojournalists given by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Fotografie (other languages) (German society for photography). www.ftn-books.com has the Stedelijk Museum catalogue from 1981 available.

salomon stedelijk

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Pretty Dutch / 2007

I have seen thousands of art book covers during this last year and here is the one that I think struck me most. It is a publication by the Princessehof from 2007 in which their collection is presented in the very best way possible. Photography of the collection by Erik and Petra Hesmerg and then there is this cover……..

pretty dutch

Photography by Fritz Kok and catalogue design by Ben Lambers

printed by Die Keure

an excellent threesome making a great publication now available at www.ftn-books.com

 

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Ossip ( continued) …Twee Heren, 1989

Last week..the chance to add to the FTN art collection an early Ossip. It is the 1989, TWEE HEREN. A large photoprint of 2 Gentleman. One clearly visible, standing proud,  enhanced with many drops of wax and the other, the same figure less confident ….just a shadow, filled in with black sand and a thin contoured line done in pencil. The borders….newspaper clippings and red tiled paper. A great and classic  large OSSIP ( 166 x 107 cm.). which is now available at www.ftn-blg.com (the FTN art section).

ossip twee heren a.jpg

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Jan Wawrzyniak (1971)

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To be homnest, …..i did not know of Jan Wawrzyniak, but because of a recent auction i searched for his name, because i was very much attracted to a black/white/grey painting by this artist. It appeared that he always uses these three colors and combines these into abstract constructivist paintings. Sometinmes vague, sometimes hard edged, but always a sense of organic too. Great art and happy to have bought this.

Wawrzyniak a

Jan Wawrzyniak lives in Berlin

Solo Exhibitions

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Forms of Aporia. Kajetan Berlin

2018

Drawn by the other. Galerie m Bochum

2017

last day … of may. M6 Annette Tietenberg Braunschweig

2016

Niche. Galerie m Bochum

2015

Unfinished. Curated by Erich Franz. Kunstverein Lippstadt

2014

Broken and Lost | Drawing. Curated by Alexander Klar. Museum Wiesbaden

Continued Drawing. Galerie m Bochum

2012

​​Zeichnerische Aporien. Museum Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern

​​2010

New pictorial spaces. Galerie m Bochum

​​​2009

Jan Wawrzyniak. Lippische Gesellschaft für Kunst Detmold​

Gezeichnete Bilder. Kunstmuseum Ahlen

​​2008

Gezeichnete Bilder. Museum Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern
Zeichnerische Aporien. Curated by Carmen Schliebe. Kunstmuseum Dieselkraftwerk Cottbus

​2007

Gezeichnete Bilder. Curated by Kai Uwe Schierz. Kunsthalle Erfurt
​2006

Fragil. Galerie m Bochum

​​2002

Stille Räume. Morat-Institut für Kunst und Kulturwissenschaft Freiburg
Stille Räume. Brühler Kunstverein
​2000

Ebenen + Pfade. Kunstraum MI Posselt Bonn

​

​Group Exhibitions

2019

Galerie m 3. Mai 1969 – 3. Mai 2019. Galerie m Bochum

2018

Form follows Fiction. Kajetan Berlin

No More Books! Intersexualitat Textual. Curated by Vicente da Palma. Art i Pensament Contemporani L’Hospitalet Barcelona

Ansichtssache. Curated by Eveline Weber. Kunstraum Alexander Bürkle Freiburg

Kunst und Kohle: Schwarz. Curated by Friederike Wappler. Kunstsammlungen der Ruhr-Univeristät – Museum unter Tage Bochum

2017

The Flying Field. Autowerkstatt Wilhelmsaue Berlin

2015

Weltsichten. 400 Jahre Landschaft in der Kunst. Kunsthalle Rostock  ​

Land in Sicht. Weserburg | Museum für moderne Kunst Bremen

2014   ​

Blank_Space. Galerie m Bochum

Entgrenzung. Positionen zur Zeichnung. Curated by Kornelia Röder. Künstlerhaus Schloss Plüschow

Weltsichten. Het landschap verbeeld in zees eeuwen kunst. Bonnenfantenmuseum Maastricht

2013   ​

We fragment, collect and narrate. Curated by Sayoko Nakahara. Cultuurcentrum Mechelen

Noch nie gesehen. Neue Schenkungen und Ankäufe für die grafische Sammlung. Kunstmuseum Bonn

​2012

Weltsichten. Landschaft in der Kunst seit dem 17. Jahrhundert. Kunstmuseum  Dieselkraftwerk Cottbus

Weltsichten. Landschaft in der Kunst seit dem 17. Jahrhundert. Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz

Aufbruch. Malerei und realer Raum. Kunsthalle Rostock

Aufbruch. Malerei und realer Raum. Museum im Kulturspeicher Würzburg

Aufbruch. Malerei und realer Raum. Museum Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern​

Aufbruch. Malerei und realer Raum. Akademie der Künste Berlin​​

Junge Akademie. Akademie der Künste Berlin
​2011

Aufbruch. Malerei und realer Raum. Stiftung Situation Kunst Bochum

Saxonia Paper. Kunsthalle Leipzig
Shelter: Art Against Trafficking Women and Sexual Exploitation. Peter Freeman Inc. New York​

Shelter: Art Against Trafficking Women and Sexual Exploitation. Galerie Urs Meile Luzern​

Shelter: Art Against Trafficking Women and Sexual Exploitation. Künstlerhaus Schloss Plüschow

Weltsichten. Landschaft in der Kunst seit dem 17. Jahrhundert. Museum Wiesbaden

Weltsichten. Landschaft in der Kunst seit dem 17. Jahrhundert. Kunsthalle Kiel

​2010

Weltsichten. Landschaft in der Kunst seit dem 17. Jahrhundert. Stiftung Situation Kunst Bochum​
2009

Blattgold. Zeitgenössische Grafik. Ausstellung des Kunstfonds im Sächsischen Staatsministerium der Finanzen. Dresden
2008

Nur der Schein trügt nicht. Das Sehen als interaktiver Prozess. Stiftung Situation Kunst Bochum​

​2004

Bochum sammelt II: Landschaftsbilder. Museum Bochum
1996

Von Schlachten – vom Schlachten. Kunstsammlung der Städtischen Museen Jena

​1993

Goethe-Institut Tel Aviv

1992

Frontiera. Forum junger Kunst in Europa. Curated by Matthias Flügge. Bolzano

​

Public Collections

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Kunstmuseum Ahlen

Lindenau-Museum Altenburg

Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (nbk)

Stiftung Situation Kunst Bochum

Kunstmuseum Bonn

Sammlung zeitgenössischer Kunst der Bundesrepublik Deutschland ​

Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden

Museum Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern

Kolumba Kunstmuseum des Erzbistums Köln

Museum Morsbroich Leverkusen

Muzeum Sztuki Lodz

Kunstsammlung des Landes Sachsen-Anhalt Magdeburg

​Westfälisches Landesmuseum Münster

Kunstsammlungen Neubrandenburg

Museum Wiesbaden

 

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Posters by Willem Sandberg and Wim Crouwel…part 1

Last month i was able to acquire a small collection of Stedelijk Museum posters by Willem Sandberg and Wim Crouwel and because of my large collection of Stedelijk Museum material and the historical importance of these publications, i have decided to devote some of the blogs to the relation between the posters and the catalogues published with the exhibitions listed on the poster.

To start…. this very nice Sandberg designed poster he made for the Hunziker /van der Gaag exhibition. January ? Feruary 1962.

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Both female artists and both belonging to the COBRA mouvement.

Books and poster are available at www.ftn-boooks.com

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Gracia Lebbink (1963)

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This blog is long time overdue. I met Gracia for the first time when she was designing the artist book LA STANZA VEDE by Kounellis for the Haags Gemeentemuseum in 1990. She was introduced to the Haags Gemeentemuseum by Rudi Fuchs who was the director at that time and because trusted her skills after being introduced to Rudi by  Walter Nikkels some time before.

Since, she designed for the Gemeentemuseum many publications and posters and build a prestigious agency on the way, “designing” for many cultural institutions and museums. Always recognizable, simple , beautiful designs and with a typography that invites reading the texts.

I mentioned Nikkels and Lebbink in the same sentence and that is not without a reason … I consider both to be the very best from the generations to follow Sandberg and Crouwel and because I have known Gracia professionally, she is placed on the no. 1 spot, followed at some distance by Walter Nikkels. It proves Rudi Fuchs had a nose to pick not only the best artists, but also the right choice in commissioning a designer with a project. Gracia had to stop her professional career in 2003, leaving us some very beautiful and appealing designs.

Because of my personal interest in her works I have collected many of Gracia’s designs for FTN-books. Many are available at www.ftn-books.com…..just search for Lebbink and you will encounter over 30 Gracia Lebbink designed publications available.

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Maria C.P. Huls (1950)

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Dutch-born Maria Huls has had education in the Netherlands but is now living since 1988 near Osnabrück. When I look at her work I do not see much of a dutch tradition in her sculptures. I find them more inspired by Minimal and Konkrete Kunst. This is the kind of art that inspires me and when I look at Huls her sculptures I find them very peaceful but full of tension because of the layered shapes and torsions.

Especially her Kleinskulpturen have these qualities. This another of those lesser-known artists that you discover while writing a regular blog. Maria C.P. Huls deserves a better presentation of her works.

huls