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.
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.
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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.
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.
Hailing from Kuortane, Finland, Hugo Alvar Henrik Aalto was born in February 1898 and departed from this world on May 11, 1976 in Helsinki.
Between the years 1916 and 1921, Aalto pursued the study of architecture in Helsinki, later establishing his own architectural firm in Jyväskylä. Alvar Aalto is widely recognized as one of the most influential architects of the Scandinavian modern movement, earning him membership in the Congrés Internationeaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM).
Some of Aalto’s notable works include the campus of Helsinki University of Technology, the Säynätsalo Town Hall, and the Finlandia Hall in Helsinki. However, Aalto’s ambitions extended beyond the borders of Finland, leading to the realization of his architectural designs in various locations across the globe, with notable examples in Germany and the United States.
In addition to his contributions in architecture, Aalto also achieved success in the realm of product design. Perhaps his most renowned creation is the Aalto Vase, inspired by the abundance of lakes in Finland, serving as a testament to the neglect of human needs in the industrial world.
Erzsébet Baerveldt not only creates videos, but also captures moments through photos, paints with her brush, sketches with her pen, sculpts with her hands, and brings characters to life through performances. Baerveldt’s chosen first name is a tribute to the notorious seventeenth-century Hungarian Countess Erzsébet Báthory, known for her alleged vampiric tendencies. Interestingly, both women share the same birthday and initials. In addition to the countess, Baerveldt is fascinated by other historically significant women, including Mary Magdalene, Lucrezia Borgia, Mona Lisa, and Ophelia.
Through her work, Baerveldt illuminates the eternal struggle between nature and the human psyche. She finds endless inspiration in the history, religion, and mythology of the world, all of which deserve a fresh perspective. In her depictions of epic stories, Baerveldt delves into the two extremes of the human condition: the lust for power and the inevitability of mortality. No matter how much power or knowledge we may acquire, no one can escape suffering or unravel the mysteries of life and death.
Miguel Ortiz Berrocal, also known as Miguel Berrocal, was a Spanish figurative and abstract sculptor/artist, born in Villanueva de Algaidas on September 28, 1933, and passed away in Antequera on May 31, 2006.
Berrocal’s upbringing took place in the Spanish province of Málaga. At first, he pursued studies in architecture under the guidance of Angel Ferrant and Ramón Stolz at the Escuela de Artes y Oficios de Madrid in Madrid, but had a change of heart and switched to pursuing an education in arts at the Escuela de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, also located in Madrid. In addition, he received guidance from architect Castro Fernández-Shaw at his studio. From 1952 to 1954, he lived and worked in Rome.
Beginning in 1959, Berrocal embarked on creating his “Puzzle-Sculptures”, which propelled him into international recognition. In 1964, he was invited to participate in documenta III in the German city of Kassel.
Between 1967 and 2004, Berrocal primarily worked in Verona, Italy. The acclaimed artist’s work has been exhibited worldwide and consists not only of numerous sculptures, but also paintings and prints. In 2006, Berrocal passed away suddenly due to prostate cancer.
Arguably the best book on Conceptual art from the Netherlands.
Book published with the exhibition and examines approximately seventy-five works by artists of different nationalities relating to travel and the city of Amsterdam, which was the nexus of intense art activities in the 1960s and 1970s, when artists converged there from all over the world. Hanne Darboven, Gilbert & George, Sol LeWitt, Charlotte Posenenske, Allen Ruppersberg, and Lawrence Weiner, among others, spent considerable amounts of time in Amsterdam and often produced works in direct relation to the city. The Suriname-born Stanley Brouwn came to Amsterdam as a young adult in the mid-1950s, where he developed work that plays with the idea of dimensions and distances and prefigures a number of conceptual-based art practices. Reciprocally, some of the most influential Dutch artists traveled abroad extensively before establishing themselves in Amsterdam: Jan Dibbets studied in London, while Ger van Elk and Bas Jan Ader trained in Los Angeles. Because cross-influences between Dutch and American art scenes were so abundant, it is impossible to understand the historical significance of these artists without acknowledging their new mobility. In addition to drawings, installations, wall drawings, and films, the exhibition includes a large number of posters and ephemera.
One of the most outstanding books on the complex world of Conceptual Art in recent years is undoubtedly “IN & OUT of AMSTERDAM/ Travels in Conceptual Art 1960-1976.” This book holds a special place in my heart as it is a veritable treasure trove of ideas and exceptional publications that can still be found on the market. Published by MoMa, the same institution that held the exhibition of the same name in 2009, “In & Out of Amsterdam” showcases the most significant and arguably best works of the following artists: Bas Jan Ader, Stanley Brouwn, Hanne Darboven, Jan Dibbets, Ger van Elk, Gilbert & George, Sol LeWitt, Charlotte Posenenske, Allen Ruppersberg, and Lawrence Weiner. These exceptional artists were all featured in the Bulletins series published by Art & Project, and their publications have now become highly sought-after collector’s items. As these publications have been scarce since their initial release and have now been around for over 40 years, I highly recommend starting a collection of them while they are still accessible. Check out www.ftn-books.com for more information.
The work of Friso Kramer (1922-2019) has had a profound impact on the international design world, making him one of the most significant designers known in the Netherlands. His unmistakable mark on industrial design can still be seen today.
Born in 1922, Friso Kramer began experimenting with various materials and techniques at a young age. While studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague, he specialized in industrial design. And his talent did not go unnoticed. One of his most famous designs is the Revolt chair for Ahrend. A sleek and functional chair, made from conventional sheet steel. Unobtrusive and serving, just like his also well-known design of the green mailbox.
Friso Kramer’s designs are functional, timeless, and innovative. They remain relevant from generation to generation, long after they first hit the market.
“If the form does not contribute to the function, it has no right to exist.”
www.ftn-books.com has the scarce Friso Kramer catalog for his fsamous Stedelijk Museum exhibition now available.
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
