FTN-blog

Following several lessons at the Amsterdam School of Applied Arts, he established himself as a self-taught artist. He worked in various locations such as Amsterdam, the Middle East, Java in 1898, Bali in 1904, and Lombok in 1906 and 1907. Starting from 1900, the year of his marriage to Anna Wilbrink, he began building a houseboat named “De Zwerver” (The Wanderer). With this, he sailed through the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. Soon, exhibitions were held on board, allowing his work to be purchased. In 1906, his design was used to build the villa “D’Eekhorst” in Lunteren, Gelderland, commissioned by his father-in-law, G.J. Wilbrink.

In 1913 and 1914, he traveled to British India. From 1917 to 1919, he journeyed to Java, Bali, and Timor, as well as other territories. In 1924-1925, he traveled to Sumatra, Java, and Bali as a result of a commission from the Amsterdam Trading Association. In 1933-1934, he visited Egypt. In 1936/1937, he made his final trip to Bali. Another trip was hindered by the outbreak of World War II. Books were written and illustrated about these travels, and many articles were published in the magazine Dutch East Indies, Old and New. His contributions also appeared in scientific journals. Much of Nieuwenkamp’s work after 1925 is linked to the Borobudur Temple in Java.

Nieuwenkamp and Anna had four children, including Willem Nieuwenkamp. As the family grew and their collection of art objects acquired during their travels expanded, he was compelled to build a house in the countryside. This was accomplished in Edam.Villa Nieuwenkamp in Fiesole.

www.ftn-books.com has the 1934 commemorative publication by the Stedelijk MUseum Amsterdam now available.

Miro admirers and collectors, know that the only affordable way to collect Miro, is by collecting the special editions for which Miro was commissioned to make a cover or special edition in a large edition size to make it still accessible for all. This way Maeght made some special publications with the artist. As for the STEDELIJK MUSEUM AMSTERDAM…they commissioned Miro to make a special cover for his catalog from 1956. This and other MIro collectable editions is now available at www.ftn-books.com

For the past five decades, Maeght Editeur has asserted its dominance as a leading art publisher. Beyond curating groundbreaking exhibitions, they have made a significant impact in the art world as publishers. One series, in particular, stands out amongst the rest – the DERRIERE LE MIROIR series, published from 1946 to 1982. This series featured numerous distinguished artists, including publications dedicated to Miro, Picasso, Braque, Calder, Bazaine, and many others. What sets this series apart is the inclusion of original lithographs in each volume. Alongside traditional illustrations, almost every volume contains at least 2 original lithographs, but in many cases, 8 to 10, some spanning over 2 pages with dimensions of 22 x 14.8 inches – a truly remarkable feat. These lithographs, although not individually numbered or signed, were affordably priced, making them accessible to the masses.

Sadly, the series ceased publication in the early 1980s. However, during its time, it provided artists with the opportunity to showcase their work for the masses. At www.ftn-books.com, a selection of these iconic titles is still available. Included are volumes featuring works by Calder, Braque, and Miro. I highly recommend these beautifully crafted books that offer a glimpse into the historic DERRIERE LE MIROIR series.

www.ftn-books.com has some great volumes from the last 5 decades by DLM

Birth: September 16, 1856; Death: February 16, 1931. Suffering from frail health in his early years, von Gloeden relocated to Taormina, Sicily, where his sister eventually joined him. From Taormina, he traversed Italy, visiting his cousin Wilhelm von Pluscrow, a commercial photographer based in Naples, who imparted his photographic knowledge. Due to financial struggles and the gift of a camera, von Gloeden embarked on his early photography career, selling postcards of Sicilian landscapes and monuments and capturing portraits of the local denizens. The villagers’ acceptance of von Gloeden’s open homosexuality was bolstered by his generosity and the royalties he bestowed upon his models, resulting in some of his images selling by the thousands. Following von Gloeden’s passing in 1931, the Italian authorities deemed his work as lurid and proceeded to obliterate an approximate three thousand glass plate negatives and prints. By the end of the Second World War, only a meager few hundred images remained.

www.ftn-books.com has some nice von Gloeden titles now available.

It was only 120 years ago that i first heard about Walter Leblanc. There was a small exhibition in a local gallery and at that time the owners predicted me that there would be a great interest in the works by Leblanc…… and they were right!….Leblanc was one of the artists related to the ZERO mouvement, but with a very personal approach to ZERO/NUL. His works were much more poetic and simplistic….a bit more like the early works by the Minimalists. But these works were completely different than most zero/nul works. These were “crafted” paintings with meticulously executed patterns made with “Twisted strings” or torsions, resulting in a composition which in many cases is  closely related to Minimal Art. But Minimal art “avant la Lettre” because these works were made some 5 years before the first Minimal Art was made by Sol LeWitt, Carl Andre and Donald Judd. Walter Leblanc sadly died in a car crash in 1986 , but his works remain. The works are now brought together in a foundation and every once in a while an exhibition is organized. The last one being a Retrospective in Brussel.

They bear a semblance to a fusion of medieval knights and Japanese samurai warriors: the four monumental rust-colored sculptures – entitled “Guardians” – designed by Japanese-American artist Shinkichi Tajiri for the city bridge in Venlo. They were unveiled two years ago by Queen Beatrix. According to the sculptor, the sculptures served as “guardians of the city”. Yesterday, it was announced by his family that Tajiri, a sculptor of the Cobra movement, passed away this past weekend. Shinkichi Tajiri was born in 1923 in Los Angeles as a child of Japanese aristocratic parents, but left America in 1948 in protest against the treatment of over 120,000 Japanese people in his home country during World War II: they were considered state enemies and imprisoned in concentration camps. This also happened to Tajiri himself, his mother, sister, and brothers. “Solely based on my appearance, I was discriminated against, mistreated, and demonized.” In an attempt to leave the concentration camp, he enlisted in the US Army, was sent to Italy, suffered a serious leg injury, and spent five months in a hospital in Rome. While still in America, Tajiri studied at the Art Institute in Chicago. After the war, he first moved to Paris, where he studied under Ossip Zadkine and Fernand Léger, and later to Amsterdam. There, he joined the artists of the Cobra movement. Together with, among others, Karel Appel, Constant Nieuwenhuys, and Corneille, he exhibited at the Stedelijk Museum in the infamous 1949 exhibition organized by museum director Willem Sandberg.

Displayed in the Stedelijk was his initial warrior. A decade later, he co-founded Group A’dam together with fellow sculptors Wessel Couzijn, Carel Visser, and Carel Kneulman. Tajiri became well-known to the public for his more abstract work: towering “knots” constructed from bronze, cast iron, steel, and plastic, which have appeared in city centers all over the world. One of these Knots serves as a Meeting Point for lost travelers at Schiphol airport. They are somewhat detached from his war trauma, and align more with the conceptual and minimalist art of the 1960s and 1970s. As a symbol of “the harmony between simplicity and strength,” as the artist explained.

Not to say that the war ever left his thoughts. In the 1990s, Tajiri returned to the theme of warriors. In total, he would create dozens of them. With the atrocities of the Second World War as his inspiration. “The nightmares, the dead, the wounded, they stay with you,” he said when asked. “The only way to live with it is to create images.”

In addition to being a sculptor, Tajiri was also a painter, photographer, and filmmaker. He created experimental films about smoking marijuana, an ode to the work of his second wife (Dutch sculptor Ferdie Jansen), and pin-ups interspersed with images of Richard Nixon (Nix-on-Nixon). He lived at Kasteel Scheres in Baarlo, Limburg since 1962. In 2007, Tajiri was appointed Knight in the Order of the Dutch Lion. In that same year, a tumor was discovered in his pancreas, and he passed away on the night of Saturday to Sunday. Shinkichi Tajiri was 85 years old.

www.ftn-books.com has some of the best titles on TAJIRI available.

Constantin Brancusi was born on February 19, 1876, in Hobitza, Romania. He pursued his studies in the field of art at the Scoala de Meserii (School of Arts and Crafts) in Craiova from 1894 to 1898 and the Scoala Natzionala de Arte Frumoase (National School of Fine Arts) in Bucharest from 1898 to 1902. Seeking to further expand his artistic knowledge, he relocated to Paris in 1904, drawn to its reputation as a major center of creativity. The following year, he enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.

Brancusi’s true artistic calling came to fruition after 1907, when he entered his mature period. Here, he began to experiment with abstracted forms and developed his direct carving technique, which involved working directly with the material rather than resorting to the more traditional practice of creating a model to be replicated by others. As his works evolved, Brancusi became deeply involved in the Parisian avant-garde movement. Although he was never formally affiliated with any artistic group, he counted influential artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Fernand Léger, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, and Henri Rousseau among his close friends. In 1913, five of Brancusi’s sculptures were featured in the groundbreaking Armory Show in New York City. The following year, his works were showcased in Alfred Stieglitz’s New York gallery, 291, in the artist’s first solo exhibition.

In a landmark trial that took place in 1927, a debate arose in the United States over whether Brancusi’s Bird in Space should be classified as a manufactured object or a work of art. Ultimately, in 1928, the court ruled in favor of classifying the sculpture as a work of art.

In 1935, Brancusi received a commission to construct a war memorial in Târgu Jiu, Romania. For this task, he devised a sculptural ensemble consisting of The Table of Silence, The Gate of Kiss, and a monumental Endless Column – a project that encapsulates the primary concerns at the heart of Brancusi’s art: the idealization of aesthetic form, the integration of architecture, sculpture, and furniture, and the poetic evocation of spiritual thought.

Despite the onset of World War II, Brancusi continued to work in Paris. His final sculpture, a plaster Grand Coq, was completed in 1949. In the subsequent years, he diligently refined and adjusted his sculptural groupings in his studio, a project that exemplified his affinity for creating dynamic dialogues between his various works and the spaces they inhabited.

In 1955, the first retrospective exhibition of Brancusi’s work was held at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, before touring to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Tragically, Brancusi passed away on March 16, 1957, in Paris.

www.ftn-books.com has several titles on Brancusi available