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Jacques Tardi (1946)

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One of the iconic creators of great (french) comics is undoubtedly Jacques Tardi. Tardi managed to find the balance between classic comics/BD ( Bandes dessinee), graphic novel and Art. His series on Adele Blanc-Sec are among the very best in comic art from the last half century, but beside the series of ordinary BD’s he produced some great adaptations of “classic” french literature. Tardi successfully adapted novels by controversial writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline and crime novelist Léo Malet. In Malet’s case, Tardi adapted his detective hero Nestor Burma into a series of critically acclaimed graphic novels, though he also wrote and drew original stories of his own.

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With a style of comic art, highly recognizable and very much a style of his own, Tardi crossed the border into the world of art and his pages of comics are now sold in galeries all over the world. www.ftn-books.com has some very nice Tardi publications available.

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Carlo Battaglia (1933-2005)

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Intrigued by the catalogue i found on Carlo Battaglia, i started to look into the life of Carlo Battaglia and noticed he became friends and worked together with Robert Motherwell, Ad Reinhardt and Mark Rothko. But i noticed other aspects in his works. after seeing a large room with Battaglia paintings on photo at studio LA CITTA. I was impressed and at the same time it reminded me of Mondriaan and LeWitt

Schermafbeelding 2019-08-30 om 15.47.59 he must have been influenced by Piet Mondriaan, because just look at the similarities ….just coincidence?

left is Battaglia / right is Duinlandschap by Piet Mondriaan

On the other hand he could have been an inspirator to Sol LeWitt in later years. Battaglia is first and then comes Sol LeWitt with his Horizontal Lines.

left is Battaglia/ right Sol LeWitt

Still i like his works, This is the kind of art that inspires me and never bores.

www.ftn-books.com has publications available on all the artists mentioned

battaglia

Battaglia served in the Italian Air Force from 1958–59, and in 1962 moved to Paris. In 1967, he lived in New York City, where he established friendships with Reinhardt, Motherwell and Rothko.

In 1970, 1978 and 1980, he was invited to the Venice Biennale, exhibiting his series about Maree (“Tides”) for the first time in 1970, which introduced a theme that would be prominent throughout his life. Battaglia’s most prominent exhibitions include retrospectives at Palazzo Grassi, in Venice in 1967, Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara in 1976 and the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf in 1978.

He also participated in a number of group shows about Italian contemporary art held in many international venues, including the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington in 1974, the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam in 1977 and the Hayward Gallery in London in 1978. In 1978 and 1980, he participated to the 40th and the 43rd Venice Biennale. From 1980 on, he increasingly isolated himself and painted in total solitude.

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Madeleine Vionnet (1876-1975)

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Madeleine Vionnet….one of the great fashion designers from last century and by far the most gifted of couturiers according to Ietse Mey,  former curator of the Kostuummuseum in the Netherlands. At one time she explained that the reason why Vionnet has been so important for the world of fashion is that she had a special way of cutting the fabrics.

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She became known for clothes that accentuated the natural female form. Influenced by the modern dances of Isadora Duncan, Vionnet created designs that showed off a woman’s natural shape. Like Duncan, Vionnet was inspired by ancient Greek art, in which garments appear to float freely around the body rather than distort or mold its shape. Her style changed relatively little over her career, although it became a little more fitted in the 1930s.[6]

In the 1920s, Vionnet had created a stir by developing garments utilizing the bias cut, a technique for cutting cloth diagonal to the grain of the fabric, enabling it to cling to the body while stretching and moving with the wearer. While Vionnet herself did not invent the method of cutting fabric on the bias, she was the first to utilize bias cuts for the entirety of a garment.

www.ftn-books.com has 2 publications on Madeleine Vionnet available. One by Ietse Mey

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Stephan Fritsch (1962-2014)

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It is impossible to know every artist that ever had a gallery or museum presentation in the last 50 years or so. But sometimes you encounter work by an artist in a way you did not expect an artist who you did not know of, but who fascinates with the first works you see. In this case i had bought a lot of mainly German books on German artists , because i wanted to have the two titles on Richard Schur included in the lot. I had the winning aftersale bid and bought together with the Schur books, books ( all sealed) on other German contemporary abstract painters. One of them Stephan Fritsch.

For me an unknown painter, but with a fascinating approach to his abstract expressionist art. His works reminded me somehow of the ones i had seen in the past by Kirkeby, but where Kirkeby has a link with nature, i only see abstracttion in the works by Fritsch and …..COLOR!

Still Fritsch is a painter to get to know and to explore , however i also learned that he died in 2014 and now it is unfortunate that he died at such a young age and only leaves us a limited amount of works.

The Stephan Fritsch book is available at www.ftn-books.com

fritsch

 

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José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913)

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You can not write about Posada without thinking of Manuel Manilla, his artistic mentor. Both are extremely important for the development of Modern Art in Mexico. He has been a great influence to Diego Rivera. I am still searching for the reason why van Gennep published 2 very important monographic titles on Manilla and Posada. Is it interest or because of the worldwide reach of these publications that he thought these were interesting?….i really do not know.

Academics have estimated that during his long career, Posada produced 20,000 plus images for broadsheets, pamphlets and chapbooks. Posada was studied by key figures of Mexican muralism. Mural artists inspired by Posada, such as Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco catered to a Mexican elite that rejected foreign styles as part of their new-found bourgeois taste.

Posada is now a part of the Mexican art legacy and just a quick look into the book that is now for sale at www.ftn-books.com shows immediately why his art is timeless and a part of the Mexican folklore.

posada messenger

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Sam Francis (continued) and Nico Delaive

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As long as i remember i encountered the works by Sam Francis at the gallery Nico Delaive. From the early days of Swatch specials  (Sam Francis special) and the space occupied by Nico Delaive together with Art Unlimited the publisher i took an interest in Sam Francis  and even now , many years later,  i am always keen on the publications by Sam Francis. The copy that i recently added to my inventory is a rare one. Only 1500 copies worldwide of which not many will be on the market. The copy is now available at www.ftn-books.com

francis sam delaive.jpg

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Moreno Bondi (1959)

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Moreno Bondi, just another name i encountered in a book…..a beautiful book, large sized excellent printing, but with one problem….i never had heard of Bondi, so i bought the book and looked into it and it did make me curious to find out more on the artist. At first he reminded me of Poen de Wijs, but there is more to the artist. It appears he organizes visits to his studio in Rome and explains his art to the visitors. Whenever i go to Rome this is certainly high on my list of wishes. Sizes are not the normal size of paintings but size starts at 150 x 150 cm. Really

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impressive paintings. Oil paintings of nude men and women enhanced by marble abstract sculptures is something in which he excels. www.ftn-books.com has now the Moreno Bondi book for sale.

moreno bondi

 

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Adriaan Rees (1957)

One of the most astonishing and surprising books i came across during my search for art books in the last year is certainly this Adriaan Rees book. Published in english and chinese. Containing cut outs, double pages , velvet cover this is a true artist book. Central theme within the book is the sculpture SCREAMING IN A BUCKET . Adriaan Rees is an exceptional sculptor in many ways.  Here is the text he wrote on himself and published it on his site.

EXPLORING WANDERER

Adriaan Rees (1957, Amsterdam) lives and works in China and Amsterdam. Rees is famous for his large-scale projects and assignments for public space. He makes sculptures and installations in many materials such as ceramics, bronze, glass, textiles, plaster and stone. He also works with photography and video.

When he works with clay, traces of his hands and the use of extreme power can easily be seen at the surface. He is approaching his sculptures almost as a landscape or a human body, sometimes in a sensual, sometimes in a brutal way. He is an artist who is not predictable, someone who always surprises with new ideas and approaches, a cosmopolitan artist.

Exploring wanderer, 2015

From 2000 Rees increasingly travelled to Asia, specifically to Japan, Korea and China. He is intensely affected by these cultures and settled in Jingdezhen, China where he works in his own studio among the thousands of craftsmen locally.

Tradition and innovation, humor and seriousness, monumentality and intimacy, vulnerable and tough, traditional and contemporary, religion and war, fantasy and reality. All this you can find in his sculptures: it is a dialogue between cultural traditions like Europe and Asia.

His work can be found in collections around the world, in museums, private collections and in public space. Rees teaches in The Netherlands, Germany, Finland, USA, Japan and China and frequently gives lectures about his own work, art and art in public space.

He also works as an art advisor and curator. Since 2008 he is the initiator and project leader for the Exchange project 400 years Delft – Jingdezhen. This project brings artists, designers, archaeologists and museums from both cities together. Famous are the Blue Revolution shows in museums in Delft (NL) and Jingdezhen and Donguan (CHN). The shows attracted more than 40.000 visitors in Delft, more than 80.000 in Jingdezhen and more than 200.000 in Donguan.

Rees was the curator of these shows.

The Adriaan Rees book is now available at www.ftn-books.com

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Thijs Rinsema (1877-1947)

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This Frysian artist is by most known for his DADA works he made in te beginning of his career, but he searched for a much wider appreciation and therefore changed his style into a much more figurative style.

Far less interesting, but probably a necessary step to survive as an artist. I looked into the history of Rinsema and found some interesting works which are still exhibited in the Museums in the Northern Provinces of the Netherlands, but the best exhibition was held a long time ago at the Nijmeegs Museum in 1972 for which exhibition an excellent catalogue was published , designed by Harrie Gerritz who found a loyal following of admirers soon after for his playfulk and colourful abstract compositions. This catalogue is available at ww.ftn-books.com

This catalogue is a cclassic for the Sixties and Seventies with sobre style, minimalistic designdoes it stand as a great dutch design.

stichting nijmeegs