“Holland zonder Haast” is a series of photo books by famous dutch photographers who documented the Netherlands in the Fifties and Sixties and published by Uitgeverij VOETNOOT. The title in dutch means ” The Netherlands without rush”.
Time passed more slowly in those decades and there was more time available to simply enjoy family, friends and have some pleasure in your free time. No internet, not so many cars and less pressure on life made these times perhaps a better time to live in. The series is done by the best in dutch photography. There were 7 volumes done by Jan Blazer, Emmy Andriesse, Kees Scherer, Henk Jonker, Ad Windig, Maria Austria and Sem Presser. All of them have been sold out since these books were almost published 20 years ago, but fortunately i have some titles available at www.ftn-books.com
The first book i acquired by Uwe Ommer was ” BLACK LADIES”. On the cover a beautiful photo of an even more beautiful young woman. Her face sparkles with joy. Later i realized that his subjects were mainly African woman, but what makes them for us from Europe so appealing is that these woman present themselves as confident, westernized woman of the world .
Make Up, Hair do , even their clothes are in many cases not typically African. With beautiful woman thes photobooks are real page turners and do not disappoint. Benedikt Taschen realized the qualities of Ommer and launched his photographs in his books on photography, making these photographs available to almost anybody. Their price at that time a low euro 9,90, but times have changed and these one time cheap books are now searched and collected worldwide and at a much higher price level. www.ftn-books.com
I always have considered Paul-Armand Gette because of his avant garde art of a much younger age, but it appears he is already 92 years of age.
Like his contemporary Herman De Vries, Paul-Armand Gette studied science before dedicating himself to experimental poetry, art and the publishing of magazines and books. References to the insect world and a fascination for collecting botanical data are a constant in his poetic and visual practice. At the end of the 1940’s, Gette began to paint and ten years later he realises his first ‘sculptures’ ( ‘cristallisations verbales’). He also starts with ‘lettrist’ compositions on paper and canvas, for which he makes use of recuperated wood and lead type. In the mid-1960’s, Gette moves to Paris. In 1965, his book Pteres appears, with letter prints of discarded letters. It is the beginning of a work in which the artist’s book will play a central role. Also in 1965, Gette comes in contact with Paul De Vree. He publishes his poetic and artistic work in magazines such as Phases and OU-Cinquième Saison and is at that time working on the launch of the magazine ETER in Paris. But he does not limit himself to paper. In 1966, he experiments with an environment containing mobile sculptural elements. A year later, he organises a multimedia event in the Kunsthalle Lund, that he describes as poésie action / art total and which includes La Monte Young, Ben Vautier and Robert Filliou (all artists with an affiliation to Fluxus). www.ftn-books.com has 5 nice Gette pubications available.
Two days ago i was so lucky to have a camera ( phone) at hand. We were planning to have a little boat ride in the evening, but…..suddenly it started to rain and we decided not to go. However, 10 minutes later it stopped raining and while we were having a cup of coffee we decided it was still worth it to go to Vlietlanden for a 2 hour trip. We left at 18.45 hr. and were returning at aprox 20.10 when we passed this windmill just near our home. I asked for my telephone and took this photograph. 5 seconds sooner and it would not have had the effect it has now. 5 seconds later and we would have been blinded by the light of the sun. But with this result i am so pleased. I have not done anything with the photograph, because i think it is 100% ok, but 24 hrs later Google send me the same photograph which they had worked over with some filters and this is the result they produced ( second photograph).
The moment i saw it it reminded me of the Mondrian. Molen bij Avond i know so well from the years i worked at the Gemeentemuseum. There is 100 years between them, but these pictures show that there is still a very scenic the Netherlands to be found near the largest cities of this country. I have many of Mondrian’s publications available at www.ftn-books.com
In some way the french have a special approach to contructivist art. Their art is in many cases much “lighter” than their counterparts in Germany or the US. There are of course Francois Morellet and Aurelie Nemours and for me Charles Bezie is also one of the great ones in France.
Here is a short extract from an interview which can be found on the Charles Bézie site at www.charles-bezie.fr
Since 1974, I use straight, horizontal and vertical lines and two diagonal lines. In the beginning, I wanted to distinguish my work from that of our great elders Malevith and Mondrian by means of eradicating the geometry by a web of fines lines. I call this my graphic period. During the years that followed, my work passed through several phases where the line thickened becoming even a strip and resulted in a sign which i called the “Quadrille” . In 1995, I abandoned oblique lines. Since that date my work has become the research of rhythms obtained from numbers, irregular rhythms with “Gradations” where squares see their surface divided by strokes and regular rhythms with “Cadences” where rows of squares are only underlined on the top and bottom. The year 2003 annonces the beginning of the “Suite Fibonacci”. This XIII century Italian mathematician from whom we retain the recurrent series of numbers which constitute themselves by the simple addition of the two precedent numbers and also because the quotients between the two adjacent numbers all approach the number 1.618, the famous “golden number”. My actual project is to continue working from numbers for as long at it gives a sense to my pictorial conception.
Paul de Nooijer , filmaker and photograph announced his retirement in 2012. He did not want to repeat himself. So he focussed on his cooperation with his son Menno de Nooijer who is an artist too. De Nooijer is/was a pioneer in dutch staged photography and he even made some video clips for MTV. You can consider his photography and films like short stories in images in which he often uses stop-motion techniques.
This medium is hard to translate into a printed publication, but some efforts have been made and these are available at www.ftn-books.com
When i looked for information on Sutherland I found this excellent article on the WIDEWALLS site.
One of the leading British artists of the 20th century, GrahamSutherland was widely known for his prints and paintings. Despite some other names coming to mind before him when talking about the art history, such as David Hockney, Francis Bacon, or Lucian Freud, there was a time when Sutherland ruled undisputed. From mid-1930’s, when he established his identity as a modern painter, to the 1950s, when his influence began to wane, there was a widespread consensus amongst fellow artists and critics that Sutherland was the most exciting and compelling voice in contemporary British painting.[1] He was even commissioned to paint a portrait of Winston Churchill, in what turned out to be one of the most famous cases of the subject disliking the artwork, which eventually led to its destruction.
Sutherland’s artistic career included several significant changes in direction. After specializing in engraving and etching, he began achieving fame as a printmaker. His early pastoral prints display the influence of the English Romantic Samuel Palmer, whereby prefiguring Sutherland’s later involvement within the Neo-Romantic movement in Britain. However, the famous 1929 Wall Street Crash bankrupted many of his collectors, thus forcing Sutherland to turn to other sources of income. He worked as an illustrator until he visited Pembrokeshire, becoming completely captivated by it, and subsequently, turning to painting as a primary medium for his expression. The artist continued to draw inspiration from Pembrokeshire countryside and its enthralling anthropomorphic natural forms for the rest of his life.[2] When working on landscapes, Sutherland’s working method included seizing on a detail such as a dead tree, boulder, thorn bush, everything that according to the artist, required a separate existence. He would sketch this on the spot, and later a studio painting would evolve. Sutherland wasn’t the first to do so – many landscape artists before him had done pretty much the same, but his studio hand moved considerable further from what his outdoor eye had seen. Neo-romantic at the core, his work inspired others such as Paul Nash, John Craxton, and John Piper. Over time, Sutherland began to reveal himself as a vivid colorist with an original sense of harmonies. He somewhat banished the dark and heavy tones which he had used earlier, though preserving the sharp black and white oppositions and using acid pinks and mauves, orange and light blue, emerald, chrome yellow, and scarlet.
www.ftn-books.com has some nice Graham Sutherland titles available
Andy Warhol is known for his Pop Art and Factory years mostly, but at one time there was an early Andy Warhol . An artist who tried to survivve by taking up illustration jobs and what i personally like about these years is that his art is more poetic, you can even call it “sweet”. Cats, boots, lace everything that was in later years not used as an art object you can find in these early years.
Perhaps artistically these are not the strongest years of Warhol as an artist and certainly not the most appreciated, but his drawings are very detailed and in some cases amazing. The cats and shoes are lovely, but for me nothing out of the ordinary. But how about these 2 heads…one a detailed pen drawing the other almost the saem but filled in with gold leaf, making it a spectacular drawing and a drawing to admire.
There are not many books on these early years available, but there is one i can truly recommend. It is a german catalogue for an exhibition held in 2000 in the Hamburger Hof, where the Marx collcetion of early Warhol was presented. The book is availabel at www.ftn-books.com
Yesterday i added the MEDEDLINGEN nummer 14 magazine by the Centraal Museum Utrecht to my inventory. It was a special about Carel Visser and NUL/ ZERO. The article on Zero was an eye opener. The museum decided not to collect Zero art anymore, because they thought they had enough by the Informele and Zero artists already and they considered the ZERO mouvement not important enough to follow the ZERO artists longer. Zero was “history” they concluded.
Now 43 years later time has proven the Centraal Museum wrong, since ZERO, together with Minimalism, hav proven to be major and highly important mouvements in Art and it is likely that these mouvement will grow in importance in the decades to come.
Artist/ Author: Oliver Boberg
Title : Memorial
Publisher: Oliver Boberg
Measurements: Frame measures 51 x 42 cm. original C print is 35 x 25 cm.
Condition: mint
signed by Oliver Boberg in pen and numbered 14/20 from an edition of 20
