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Alfred Kubin (1877-1957)

Alfred Kubin

Austrian draughtsman, illustrator, painter and writer, who was widely known for his illustrations of writers of Balzac, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Gustav Meyrink and Edgar Allan Poe. In 1902 Kubin had his first one-man show at the Galerie Cassirer in Berlin, which was well received by the critics. Besides ink drawings, in 1905 he experimented with a colour paste paint technique he had learnt from Kolo Moser (works like Tsar by the Tombs of his Ancestors (1905; Munich, Lenbachhaus)).

In 1906 Kubin travelled to Paris to visit ageing Redon, and later that year he settled in Zwickledt. He continued illustrating books, such as Die Tatsachen im Falle Waldemar (Berlin, 1908). After 1909 Kubin was a member of the Neue künstlervereinigung münchen and exhibited with its successor the Blaue Reiter in 1911, as well as contributing drawings to Der Blaue Reiter in 1912. Kubin was deeply affected by World War I. Occasionally he treated the war directly in his work, as in The Mortar, but usually he approached it more obliquely. Kubin’s work of the 1930s was generally less savage than earlier but retained a strong suggestive power, as in the dark Meeting in the Forest (c. 1931–2; Munich, Lenbachhaus). There is an archive at the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in Munich, containing drawings, paintings and other material by Kubin

www.ftn-books.com has several Kubin titles available

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Hans Böhler (1884-1961)

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As a confidant of Klimt and Schiele and later Secession member, the painter Hans Böhler was closely involved the Austrian avant-garde art of the first half of the 20th century. In his lifetime his oeuvre was presented in several exhibitions. Numerous retrospectives after his death additionally testified to Böhler’s art historical weight – nowadays his works are highly popular amongst experienced collectors, but where he was presented as a new find for collectors by the Marlborough gallery in the mid Sixties, his name is now established and his circle of admirers is growing rapidly. His “nudes” are spectacular and so are his costume pieces which are a combination of the Austrian avant garde and impressionism. A painter to be followed by the serious collector.

there are a few Bohler publications available at www.ftn-books.com

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Holland zonder Haast / 7 volumes

“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

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Siegfried Anzinger (1953)

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At the time Anzinger had an exhibition at the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag ( curated by Franz Kaiser  i was not very interested in this kind of art, but sone 25 year ahead in time thingds change and now i find his work at least….INTERESTING and INTRIGUING.

Perhaps that is because i have learned to appreciate this kind of art. His paintings remind me of some of the ones Bacon has made and in the Netherlands John van ‘t Slot approached his subjects in the way Anzinger does. (Van ‘t Slot and Anzinger are from the same generation) and still they are rooted in the Austrian way of painting.

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If you try to find some information on Anzinger you will have a hard time finding it. There is some put on line by his gallery  MAX WEBER, but even this information is not very elaborate. An interesting artist, but hard to keep track of his works, because outside Germany and Austria his work is rarely seen.

http://www.ftn-books has one important publication on Anzinger available

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Walter Vopava (1948)

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I love paintings which have “infinity” in them. It is the quality i encounter in the paintings by Gerard Verdijk, but i also find them in the paintings by Walter Vopava. Abstract forms and elements combined into a landscape of abstraction with a brighter colored center making these paintings like portals to another world.

As one of the most important representatives of Austrian painting, Walter Vopava, who was awarded the Austrian Art Prize in 2011, is known for his painterly and at the same time individual and purist colour compositions. The artist studied at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. Today he lives and works in Vienna and Berlin. Vopava is a member of the MAERZ Artists’ Association and the Association of Austrian Visual Artists. His works have already been presented at the Wiener Secession (1994), the Museum Moderner Kunst – Stiftung Wörlen (1999), the Shanghai Art Museum (2005) and the Kunsthalle Krems (2011).

http://www.ftn-books.com has some Vopava publications available.

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Carry Hauser (1895-1985)

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Increasingly important and one  painter i discovered recently through a magnificent monograph/oeuvre catalogue on Carry Hauser which is available at www.ftn-books.com

I had to read some articles on this Austrian painter to know and discover myself how his art life developed through the years and it appears that the timeslot of the INTERBELLUM was artistically the most important one for him. For a quick biography…here is the entry on Wikipedia on the artist:

Carry Hauser was born in Vienna as Carl Maria Hauser into the family of a civil servant. He was educated at the Schottengymnasium and the Höhere Graphische Bundes-Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt, after which he studied at the Wiener Kunstgewerbeschule under, among others, Adolf Michael BoehmAnton von KennerAlfred Roller and Oskar Strnad. He then began his career as a painter, illustrator, theatrical designer and author, which was interrupted by World War I, for military service in which he volunteered in 1914. His war experiences made him a pacifist.

After the war he returned to Vienna, where among others he met Franz Theodor Csokor, for whose play Die rote Straße (“THe Red Street”) he designed the set in 1918. In the same year the first comprehensive exhibition of his work was held, in the museum at Troppau, and another was arranged for him by Arthur Roessler, although his earlier works had been lost during the war and could not be exhibited. He became still better-known in 1919 through his portfolio Die Insel (“The Island”).

From 1919 to 1922 Hauser was a leading member of the artists’ group Freie Bewegung (“Free Movement”), and also belonged to the artists’ society Der Fels (“The Rock”) while he lived for a time in Passau. From 1925 to 1938 he was a member of another artists’ group, the Hagenbund, of which he was president in 1927/28. In the theatrical world he was vice-president of the Vienna Theatre Guild (Wiener Theatergilde). During the 1930s in the time of the Ständestaat he was active in the Patriotic Front (Vaterländische Front).

After the Anschluss of 1938, Hauser, because of his political stance, was banned by the National Socialists from working and exhibiting. In 1939 he was given an appointment in the art school of Melbourne but was prevented from taking it up by the outbreak of World War II. His wife, Gertrud Herzog-Hauser (1894–1953), to whom he had been married since 1922, was of Jewish origin and emigrated to the Netherlands, where she managed to survive the war. Hauser went into exile in Switzerland, where he wrote Eine Geschichte vom verlorenen Sohn (1941, privately published 1945), the novel Zwischen gestern und morgen (1945) and the fairytale Maler, Tod und Jungfrau (1946).

In 1947 Hauser and his wife returned to Vienna and took part in the reconstruction. In 1952 he became General Secretary of the Austrian PEN Club, and later its vice-president, which he remained until 1972. He was also a council member of the organisation Aktion gegen Antisemitismus (“Action Against Antisemitism”) and was involved in the revival of the Berufsvereinigung der bildenden Künstler Österreichs (“Professional Union of the Fine Artists of Austria”), of which he was later vice-president.

He died in 1985 in Rekawinkel. He is buried in a grave of honour in the cemetery at Hietzing.

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Pierre et Gilles … not always controversial, but fortunately they still are.

Pierre Commoy and Gilles Blanchard, also known as Pierre et Gilles, are French artists and romantic partners. They have been producing works together since 1976, creating a world where painting and photography meet. Their art is peopled by their friends and family, anonymous and famous, who appear in sophisticated life-size sets the artists build in their studio. They meticulously apply paint to the photographs once printed on canvas. Accomplished image creators, Pierre and Gilles have built up an extraordinary contemporary iconography on the frontier between art history and popular culture.

Pierre et Gilles have sometimes attracted controversy. For example, in 2012 there was a public outcry in Austria when their work entitled Vive la France was displayed on large street posters.

 

It depicts three naked French footballers with their genitals fully revealed: the first black, the second Arab/Muslim and the third white, to represent the multi-ethnic composition of modern French society. The ensuing controversy led to an act of self-censorship by the artists, who decided that the largest street posters should be changed, and instead use coloured ribbons to hide the players’ genitals. Personally i understand that this self censorship is the right thing to do when one choses to show these photographs in public places, however sex, gay subjects and male nudity are frequently present in their photographs making it difficult to avoid these photographs because these are such an integral part of their oeuvre. Are these typically 80’s /90’s photographs?….i do not think so. These are “classic” highly creative and original photographs with one signature, as if they were made by one and the same person. Pierre et Gilles is not two, but artistically one person/artist. www.ftn-books.com has a number of Pierre et Gilles publications available.

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Narcisse Tordoir (1954) …painting as an act

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A key figure in the Antwerp art scene and also very well known in the dutch art scene because he is an advisor to the Rijksakademie Amsterdam.

But besides his presence in the art scenes of both the Low Countries, he has become world famous because of his approach to painting. Tordoir considers painting as an act and with this he has had performances in France, the UK, USA , Austria and many more countries, thus introducing his very personal approach to the art of painting to a new art scene each tine he had a performance or an exhibition outside Belgium or the Netherlands.

It is hard to find a reasonable priced work by Tordoir, but about 10 years ago i got lucky and bought a tetralogy at a local auction. It is a work typical for the works Tordoir produced during the eighties on which he combined several smaller ” paintings into a unique work of art. This work consists of 4 framed works of abstract figures forming together a unique Narcisse Tordoir. This work is now for sale at FTN art together with the books www.ftn-books.com has on Narcisse Tordoir.

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On the road to Germany, Switzerland and Austria there is some great architecture. Botta, Gehry and Piano

Ok,  it is a little detour but worth to make it. Traveling to Basel it isn’t a detour because it is next to Basel , where also The Beyeler Museum by Renzo Piano can be found and the Tinguely Museum is also not to be missed. It is one of the earlier Gehry buildings which is realized in Weil Am Rhein for the VITRA corporation. Visit it and certainly visit the restoring facility for “classic” Eames chairs in the recently realized new building and enjoy them both. Continue your architectural journey to one of the best museums in Europe…the Beyeler Museum ( architecture by Renzo PIano ) and continue with a visit to the Tinguely Museum ( by Mario Botta), spend one night in southern Germany, enjoy a Wiener Schnitzel and then continue via Munchen to Vienna and enjoy this city with its great buildings and impressive collections. When you walk through this city, at one time you will certainly encounter the Osterreichische POSTSPARKASSE building ….the entrance door looks closed, but enter it and see one of the most beautiful art deco buildings i ever visited.