Tag: art

Mario Prassinos (1916–1985) was a French modernist painter, printmaker, illustrator, stage designer, and writer of Greek-Italian descent.

Prassinos was born in Constantinople, Ottoman Empire (now Turkey) in 1916, the son of Victorine and Lysandre Prassinos. In 1922, at the age of six, he immigrated to France with his family, who had escaped the brutal persecution of Greeks and other ethnic minorities by the Ottoman government. Prassinos became a naturalized French citizen in 1949.

He attended the Sorbonne in Paris beginning in 1932 and briefly trained in the studio of the French painter Clement Serveau (1886–1972).

Through his father’s literary interests Prassinos became acquainted with Surrealism, meeting Paul Eluard, André Breton, Salvador Dalí, Man Ray. Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp and others in 1934, and decided to become an artist. From 1932 to 1936 he worked in a Surrealist style, introducing procedures of automatism and formal ambiguities that he retained in his later work.

His first exhibition took place in 1938 at the Galerie Billiet-Pierre Vorms in Paris. That same year he married Yolande Borelly. His daughter Catherine Prassinos was born in 1946.

Prassinos volunteered for military service in 1940, was seriously wounded and later received the Croix de Guerre (Cross of War). He also worked with the French Resistance during World War II, helping Allied soldiers escape Nazi-occupied France.

During the period 1942 to 1950 he met Raymond Queneau and Albert Camus and produced work for Editions Gallimard.

Prassinos’ work is found in major art museums in Europe and North America, including the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris; Kunsthalle Bremen, Germany; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Art Institute of Chicago, and others.

Prassinos died at his home in Eygalières, France on 23 October 1985. After his death, a donation of 800 of the artist’s works was made to the French state. The “Donation Mario Prassinos” collection is housed in the Chapel of Notre-Dame de Pitié (also called Notre-Dame des Sept Douleurs) in Saint Remy de Provence, France.

www.ftn-books.com has 1 Prassinos title available:

Vivan Sundaram (born 1943 in Shimla) lives in Delhi. He studied painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts, MS University of Baroda (1961-65) and at Slade School of Art, London (1966-69), where he also studied History of Cinema. Active in the students’ movement of May 1968, he helped set up a commune in London and lived in it till 1970. On his return to India in 1971, he worked with artists’ and students’ groups to organize events and protests, especially during the years of the national Emergency. In the 1980s, Sundaram did three large shows of narrative painting and participated in the seminal group exhibition, ‘Place for People’ (1981). Since 1990 he has made installations that include sculpture, photographs and video. The installation Memorial (1993-2014) referred to the communal violence in Bombay. A monumental site-specific installation at the Victoria Memorial, Calcutta, now referred to as History Project (1998), was accompanied by the documentary Structures of Memory. Continuing work on the family of Amrita Sher-Gil (based on photographs taken by Umrao Singh Sher-Gil) include the installation The Sher-Gil Archive (1995) and a set of digital photomontages, Re-take of ‘Amrita’ (1991 -92). A series of exhibitions using found objects include Trash (2008), an installed urbanscape of garbage, digital photomontages, and the videos Tracking (2004), Brief Ascension of Marian Hussain (2005) and Turning (2008). Discarded and found materials were used to makes garments, and the work crossed over into fashion and performance in Gagawaka (2011) and Postmortem (2013). In 2012, Black Gold, an installation of potsherds from the excavation site of Pattanam in Kerala, was made into a three-channel video. These potsherds formed the basis of terraOptics (2016), digital photographs.

A collaborative project on the artist Ramkinkar Baij, 409 Ramkinkars (2015), involved theatre directors including Anuradha Kapur, and developed into a multipart installation and performance. In 2017, a collaboration with cultural theorist Ashish Rajyadhyaksha and sound artist David Chapman resulted in a public art project on the Royal Indian Navy uprising which was joined by Bombay’s working class, titled Meanings of Failed Action: Insurrection 1946.

Sundaram has had solo shows in many cities of India, as well as London, Paris, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Amsterdam, Budapest, Copenhagen, New York, Chicago, Dallas, and at the Fowler Museum, Los Angeles (2015). He has exhibited in the Biennales of Havana, Johannesburg, Kwangju, Taipei, Sharjah, Shanghai, Sydney, Berlin, and in the Asia-Pacific Triennial, Brisbane. He has also exhibited in curated shows at Tate Modern, London (2001); Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2001); Haus der Kulturen Welt, Berlin (2003); Queens Museum (2005) and International Centre for Photography (2008), New York; Haus der Kunst, Munich (2006); Museum of Modern Art Ludwig Foundation, Vienna (2006); ZKM, Karlsruhe (2007); Chicago Cultural Centre, Chicago (2007); Mori Museum, Tokyo (2008); HangarBicocca, Milan (2007); Fondazione Fotografia, Modena (2012); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2011); Arken Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen (2012-13).

www.ftn-books.com has a few Sundaram publications available.

Time for another blog on Keesde Goede. The reason…..The excellent catalogue that was published by galerie ONRUST in 1991 on de Goede his recent works. Text by Rudi H. Fuchs and what makes this even more special is the print on outside and inside flaps. Silkscreened prints ( ca. 7 cm each ), which makes this a very special publication. galerie Onrust is one of the greatest of all galleries in the Netherlands from last century and this catalogue proves it. The catalogue is available at www.ftn-books.com

Richard Peter Schmid is an artist who repeatedly seeks dialogue with his older works in order to be able to have a fresh look at them from the perspective of his latest paintings and discover in them the seeds of what is to come.

His work is not a slave to innovation, but it is aware of what it owes to older painting, his own as well as works by other artists. ‘To reach a sensibility, which is comparable to that of Monet’s, Renoir’s, or Cézanne’s picture sequences’, is no small-scale intention. It is about nothing less than the possibilities painting affords today.

The concern is for painting which is entirely conscious of the fact that it is denied all possibilities for merely repeating historical painting and which nevertheless does not see its salvation in mere technical or even technological expansions of the painterly process. But, to avoid any misunderstanding: Painting may only be anyway preserved if you carry on with it, against all inner and exterior obstacles. www.ftn-books.com has the Linzer publication form 2002 available.

Jan Grosfeld (Valkenswaard, 1956 – Amsterdam, 2019) was a very well respected Dutch artist who’s works have found their way to the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen and many other institutional collections.

This is practically all I could find on this artist. I did not know him personally, but I knew his works since I visited gallery Nouvelles Images and the museum Boymans van Beuningen frequently and both had large collections of this artist. What I remember is that his prices could be described as “affordable” but his art was priceless. Always his compositions were based on contrast, black and deep browns against white and creme backgrounds.

This made his works stand out and made that I still remember his works. Becaue of his lesser popularity there are not many publications to be found , but there is one I can recommend. It is the Nouvelles Images published :Jan Grosfeld, Me-LKCHO_COLA_DEREEP, which is now available at www.ftn-books.com

Hans van der Ham studied classical piano at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague and the Utrecht Conservatory (graduated 1984). He then studied autonomous art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rotterdam where he graduated with paintings, drawings and graphics (graduated 1989). However, Van der Ham was mainly active for more than 30 years as a sculptor and became known for his black clay sculptures. Vulnerable souls, wrapped in rock hard material. But his indefinable worlds on paper, made of gouache or black ink, also characterize his oeuvre. Until 2020, the need arose to return to his old metier and to make a new start from the spatial work with paintings in various formats.

Van der Ham has been working as an independent visual artist in Rotterdam since 1989 and regularly has exhibitions at home and abroad. His work was represented by Galerie Nouvelles Images in The Hague until its closure in 2018. His work is included in various museum and corporate collections.

In 2012, Van der Ham cofounded Garage Rotterdam, together with a Rotterdam patron, where he was responsible until 2015 as curator and artistic director. Van der Ham makes exhibitions on a regular basis, including for Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen: as a guest curator in 2018 he produced the exhibition ANIMA MUNDI.

www.ftn-books.com has the 2006, METIS catalogue available ( scarce only 500 copies)

Meijers mines the language of the underground for its raw power and immediacy of communication. A musician, and longtime fixture on the Dutch indie music scene, Meijers portrays his post-punk subjects with reverence, imbuing them with a dignity they are not normally accorded in contemporary society. Pin ups, prophets, mystics and pimps are lovingly adorned with the flotsam and jetsam of the streets.

The creative tension in his work resides in his exuberant embrace of heroic expressionist painting – while simultaneously mythologizing his figures that are far from noble. Still, like his literary heroes, Genet, Celine and Bukowski, Meijers does not liberate his figures from hell, but rather brings his viewer deep into the spirit of the world they inhabit.

Rik Meijers trained at the Academie Beeldende Kunsten (Visual Arts Academy) in Maastricht and Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht. Works by Rik Meijers are included in the collections of the Stedelijk Museum, Amseterdam, S.M.A.K. Gent, Fries Museum Leeuwarden, Bonnefantenmuseum Maastricht, Museum voor Moderne Kunst Arnhem, Schunck Heerlen, Museum Het Domein Sittard, ABN-AMRO Amsterdam, Océ Venlo, De Nederlandsche Bank Amsterdam and DSM Art Collection. In 1996 he won the Koninklijke Subsidie for free painting and in 2000 the Wolvecampprijs.

www.ftn-books.com has now the Bonnefantenmuseum catalogue available.

Today i encountered a small book on Aat Verhaag and his ” model” paintings. Available at www.ftn-books.com

BUt the purchase of the book reminded me of one of the very first art works I purchased. It was an etching by Aat Verhoog which I bought at ARTA in Den Haag. I was impressed with the etching. I can not recall the reasons I was impressed, but fact is the etching is still in my collection so it must have a timeless quality for me personally.

I encountered Aat Verhoog once at the Gemeentemuseum, but never visited his studio. Still I encountered his paintings at auction and I am always interested to see what their auction results are.The little book I have now for sale is dedicated to his model paintings. Posing, Undressing, modelling….they have a Balthus quality about them making these the very best from his impressive oeuvre.

His work can be found in the collection of, among others, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the Dutch Textielmuseum, Centraal Museum Utrecht, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, Cooper-Hewitt Museum, New York and several private collectors.

Jeroen Vinken is in my opinion the best representative in our country of an industrial designer who is also an artist. For instance, it was Jeroen Vinken who did extensive research in the Dutch Textielmuseum on their first jacquard machine to get as many colours as possible with a limited amount of coloured yarns. Every student or artist who has a digital design woven in the museum nowadays profits from his work. But beside industrial development (Vinken was and is consultant for several weaving mills and carpet manufacturers) he also paints and creates very poetic woven images, for instance in his curtain designs, with repeats up to five meters!

www.ftn-books.com has the 1986 Nederlands Textielmuseum catalogue now available.

Because of a recent addition to my inventory ( the ECHO book by Stijn Peeters)(available at www.ftn-books.com, I stumbled upon the site of Peeters and stayed there for over 20 minutes. Searching, reading , admiring and remembering. An adventure which took part of the time I decided to devote tot this blog on Peeters. Better still …take a look your self at the site of Stijn Peeters an d experience what I experienced. A remarkable and original site by an original authentic artist: www.stijnpeeters.com

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