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Arie van Geest (1948)

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Without realizing i have collected a beautiful small collection with works by Arie van Geest. Born in Maasland he stayed in the region and had several studios in Rotterdam. The friendship with Pat Andrea shows in his early works which were a little surreal, but in the mid eighties he changed in the approach of his painting. His works became abstract with realistic elements and that is the time i met Arie and bought my first drawing. Together with Mariette Josephus Jitta, as the curator in charge, he made the Tableau Mourant exhibition in which 98 watercolors were shown. This series was later bought by the van Gogh Museum. For the exhibition in the Gemeentemuseum 2 editions were made. One “ordinary edition” designed by Paul Stoute and the other a linnen bound one, with a drawing/watercolor by van Geest.

The style changed dramatically and personally i prefer this “new” Arie van Geest above his more realistic style. He stayed loyal to this new found abstract style for almost 20 years and changed again to a more a realistic way of painting in 2002. All three periods are important, but when you look at the museums that bought Arie van Geest ( Gemeentemuseum, Stedelijk Museum, Boymans van Beuningen ) , They all made their acquisitions in the abstract period, except for the Athens Museum which made purchases from his most recent period. Arie van Geest was represented by Delta Gallery. He now has frequent shows with Livingstone gallery.  I have decided to sell part of my Arie van Geest works, so please have a look at FTN art and for the book related material visit www.ftn-books.com

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Lucian Freud “Momart edition”, 2003

Each year, for over 30 years, an artist, with whom Momart has an established relationship, has been invited to design a limited Christmas card edition for Momart’s clients. Since then they have been lucky to collaborate on this project with many of the top British and international artists including Lucian Freud, David Hockney, Gary Hume, Sarah Lucas, Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst and especially the Freud edition has rose to mythic proportions. A printed card which was designed by the artist himself and making this one of the last works of art in edition Freud has made before he died in 2011.

The card is now sought over by collectors and Freud enthousiasts worldwide and www.ftn-books.com has one for sale.

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Encore c1949
Print
20 x 24cm
Consists of a reproduction of an original sketch by Lucian Freud mounted on folded buff card stock and contained in buff envelope.
MOMART Christmas Edition
The entire MOMART Christmas Greeting series is now in the permanent collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, The Tate and several other international museums.

The card comes together with all the original Momart packaging material.

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Charlotte Dorothée barones van Pallandt (1898-1997)

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One of the more classic sculptors in the Netherlands. She is probably the most well known sculptor from the last century. Possibly the reason is, that it is believed that she gave lessons to the young Princess Beatrix , who is a gifted amateur sculptor herself and has always admired van Pallandt.

For me van Pallandt stands for one of the very best catalogues the Stedelijk Museum has ever published and Eja Siepman van den Berg, who was the first to win the Charlotte van Pallandt prize for sculpture. van Pallandt is a classic sculptor and a great technician, but besides her fantastic technique, i always get the same feeling when i see her sculptures. I am a little bored. Great for a first look , but when studied for a longer time i loose interest where as the sculptures by Eja Siepman van den Berg grow on you and with every possible angle and lighting the sculpture shows itself differently and fascinates. Better judge for yourself…..On the left a van Pallandt portrait , on the right ” stapje” . by Eja Siepman van den Berg.

One exception… the statue by van Pallandt of the former Queen Wilhelmina…almost abstract in its approach, but the outline and posture are certainly that of Wilhelmina. See it from a distance and it is an abstract blur, come closer and it is Queen Wilhelmina determined to lead a small country.

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www.ftn-books.com has some publications on van Pallandt available including the mentioned Stedelijk Museum catalogue.

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Larry Bell (1939)

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The last day in this cycle of blogs on Forgotten artists. The 5th blog is devoted to Larry Bell. I was in doubt if he really is forgotten, but concluded that at least in Europe he is forgotten. Where he had an initial important exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum in 1968, for which Wim Crouwel designed the catalogue his name never showed up again in the Netherlands for participating in an exhibition ……but on the other side of the ocean it was different and his fame rose in the US from the early Seventies until now. The cubes he has made are magical and are a long time element in his oeuvre.  This is what he says on his site on his Cubes.

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CUBES

Larry Bell became interested in glass in the early 1960s. As a medium, it had three properties that interested: it could transmit, absorb and reflect light, and with specific treatment, it could do all three at the same time. He found the cube to be an ideal form with which to investigate the phenomena of light on surface. The first cubes were made using household mirrors from which he would scratch away parts of the reflective material. Later he discovered a plating process that would make the glass reflective on both sides. With the early cubes, he incorporated geometric imagery, including the ellipse, adding visual complexity and depth to the simple forms. Eventually he eliminated the imagery. With a technology that deposited exquisitely thin films of various metallic and non-metallic substances to the glass. The resulting visual spectrum of colors is in fact light reflected in different wavelengths off the surface of the glass. Bell has continued to revisit the cubes throughout his career.

To end : there is a discount code on every purchase of 10% for the readers of this blog.

use: forgotten10    and you will receive the discount on your order/ valid until the 30th of June 2018

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Pieter Laurens Mol / Cervo Pendulum

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Sometimes you know a book exists, never seen it, but from stories heard and publications read there is only one conclusion…it must be out there…somewhere.

Cervo Pendulum by Pieter Laurens Mol is such a publication. I learned the book was printed by Rosbeek. At the times i visited this printer in the late Nineties i had never seen a copy. All the times i visited book fairs, markets etc….no copy found. But now finally after over 24 years  i have a copy at www.ftn-books.com available.

mol cervo a

This book is rare, that is for certain, but it is also important. It is one of those little artists books which is worth collecting. Printed by Rosbeek and published on the occasion of the opening of the new medical faculty building of the University of Utrecht. Edition is said to be 250 copies only and of these few will have survived. Text is in dutch and in english, which makes this important book accessible to english collectors too.  An absolute “must have” for the Pieter Laurens Mol collector and it is not very likely that it will show up again in the coming years.