Tag: crouwel

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Mark Tobey (1890-1967)

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There was a time when i had not heard of Tobey, but since i saw some large works by him in both the Beyeler, Stedelijk Museum….. i am a fan.

It started with the catalogue i acquired 20 years ago. Bought the catalogue because of the Wim Crouwel design ,but was immediately attracted by the works within….They were Tobey’s .

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Tobey is most notable for his creation of so-called “white writing” – an overlay of white or light-colored calligraphic symbols on an abstract field which is often itself composed of thousands of small and interwoven brush strokes. This method, in turn, gave rise to the type of “all-over” painting style made most famous by Jackson Pollock, another American painter to whom Tobey is often compared.

Tobey is working on different sizes but for me his large works are the most impressive. The last 16 years of his live he spend in Basel, which is of course the reason why so many of his works stayed  there. Throughout the years he travelled all over the world.

He was an incessant traveler, visiting Mexico, Europe, Palestine, Israel, Turkey, Lebanon, China and Japan and spread his works this way in an organic way, but the main part of his oeuvre stayed in Switzerland, in Basel where le lived for 16 years.

Here are some locations where his works are part of the collection: Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Tate Gallery in London, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. There have been at least four posthumous individual exhibitions of Tobey’s work: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., USA, 1984; Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany, 1989; Galerie Beyeler, Basel, Switzerland, 1990; and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.

The publications below are available at www.ftn-books.com

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Gustav Mahler and Willem Mengelberg

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Mahler pioneer Willem Mengelberg

Willem Mengelberg, conductor of  the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, was grasped by Mahler’s music when he attended  the first performance of his Third Symphony in Krefeld (G) in 1902. Right from that moment, he vigorously took on promoting Mahler’s music, claiming Mahler to be  “the Beethoven of his time”.  In his persistent efforts to introduce Mahler’s music, Mengelberg gradually acquired an outstanding position  both  in The Netherlands and  in Europe,  in this respect  leaving behind  other contemporary conductors.

Time and again, Mengelberg tried to persuade Mahler to conduct his own works in Amsterdam. This materialized   in 1903, 1904, 1906 and 1909. During these visits, the composer was staying with the  Mengelbergs at their home. However, because of his numerous engagements elsewhere, Mahler was often compelled to decline Mengelberg’s  invitations for conducting.

Mengelberg’s commitment to promote Mahler’s music should not be underestimated. At the time, a substantial part of the public would leave the concert hall to demonstrate their disapproval of Mahler’s music, which was, on top of that, often ridiculed by the critics. Mengelberg  was convinced  of Mahler’s genius, which inspired him to persist in his dogged endeavours, taking for granted  that this implied  rowing against the stream . Only after years of sustained perseverance, a ‘Mahler community’ came into existence in The Netherlands, which formed the basis of the unprecedented success of the ‘Mahler Feest’ in 1920, drawing worldwide attention. In the 1920’s,  Mengelberg,  who had  by then also become conductor of the New York Phiharmonic, repeated his efforts to promote Mahler’s music to the American  public.

Mengelberg was one of the most important Mahler pioneers who deserves a special place of honour in our remembrance.  His tireless efforts to make  Mahler’s music better known to a greater public contributed  greatly to the international Mahler culture of this era.

The Willem Mengelberg’s archives in the Netherlands Music Institute contain, amongst other things, his conducting scores, which are characterized by his colourful  annotations that clearly indicate  his conductors interpretation of  the work concerned.  In addition, many of these scores also contain instructions and  remarks of Mahler himself: tangible and visible evidence of the close ties between Mengelberg and Mahler.

the above text is from willemmengelberg.nl

Why this blog on Mengelberg? It was about 20 years ago that well before the “craze” of huge and impressive publications ( Newton, Araki) that this tremendous large publication was published on the occasion of the Mengelberg Festival 1995. It is indeed a huge publication. Weight being well over 5 kg and published in a cardbox blue linnen covered container with a text plublication and in a different volume the musical score by Mengelberg with his annotations . This is the perfect facsimile.

Best of all: designed by one of my heroes ….Wim Crouwel. This is such a publication that will be in demand for a very long time and very hard to find. Now i have two copies available from a remainder stock and both in “new” condition at www.ftn-books.com

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Roman Cieslewicz

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Another great artist who i forgot to mention in my blog on Topor is Roman Cieslewicz. Cieslewicz was a long time friend of Topor , lived in Paris too and rose to fame in the sixties with his graphic design for Vogue and Elle and the posters he designed for several other events.

For the dutch his work was presented for the first time in the Stedelijk Museum in 1973 . An excellent catalogue designed by Wim Crouwel was published on that occasion. The exhibition showed the strength of this artist, because the main part of the exhibition consisted of poster designs he had made in the previous 20 years.

Cieslewicz is one of those rare artist, who in his life was far less appreciated than in these days. Graphic art students from all over the world have inquired about his books in the last few years, which shows to me his star is on the rise and soon the books on Cieslewicz will become rare collectable items.

catalogue available at www.ftn-books.com

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Jurriaan Schrofer

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Yesterday we ate with our good friend Annemarie Schrofer and because of the beautiful paintings by her father on the walls, i remembered another member of the Schrofer family ……Jurriaan Schrofer.

Born in 1926 and also a child of Annemarie’s father Willem Schrofer he would become one of the leading typography and graphic designers in the Netherlands. His works can be considered as “avant garde” design, thinking “out of the box” and soon he would develop his very own style . He originally wanted to become a film director, but ended being the assistant to Dick Elffers. This was the starting point of a splendid career as a graphic designer. For a few years in the seventies he was a member of Total Design, but soon followed again his own path. Highly original and recognizable are his designs. He was commissioned by many dutch important institutions and was appreciated for the designs he made for them, but his true recognition as one of the leading graphic designers from last century is only 25 years old. His works would become internationally known and appreciated. There now is a high interest in his works from leading British Graphic design schools and recently the same interest comes from the US.

Jurriaan Schrofer books can still be picked up at reasonable prices and for those interested in dutch graphic design, the designs by Schrofer are an absolute and quintessential part in the history of Graphic design and not to be missed in any collection. www.ftn-books.com

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Tapio Wirkkala (1915-1985)

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The Finnish master of design and glas has had some great exhibitions in the Netherlands, but the most important one was the one in the Stedelijk Museum ( 1976). The Stedelijk Museum took a special interest in Wirkkala and acquired many beautiful works by him and from his wife Rut Bryk, who also had her exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum (1970) , even before her husband had his. Both their catalogues were designed by Wim Crouwel and both catalogues are collectors items now.

Wirkkala designed many great glas objects for Iitala which are still in production. I wish i had more publications on Wirkkala and his wife, but these are rare. The ones i have are both from the Stedelijk Museum. One is the monography and the other two are on a group exhibitions on Finnish glas and design.

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Josef Koudelka….not only a Magnum photographer.

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Czech nationality and now 78 years of age, spanning a photography career of over 55 years, multiple exhibitions all over the world, Koudelka has become one of the most important photographers in modern photograph. Street scenes and the Romani ( Gypsies from Romany) are subjects he has become famous for. Not only a Magnum photographer but also a photographer who found his subjects among people he cared about. They were not only his subjects. In the photographs you could see that he could come very close by and had become more of  a friend than the photographer who followed his subject.

I thought about Koudelka because i found a very interesting article about Koudelka in which is explained what the 10 most important lessons were Koudelka has taught a fellow photographer.

http://erickimphotography.com/blog/2013/03/28/10-lessons-josef-koudelka-has-taught-me-about-street-photography/

this is what the author Eric Kim says about Koudelka and i totally agree with him.

“To me, Josef Koudelka is one of the most brilliant photographers out there and a true master of black and white. Not only does his work carry a strong sense of composition, form, and geometry but they also carry an emotional impact. His photos are raw, gritty, and show both the hope and melancholy of life”

If you are interested in modern photography you must look at these breathtaking and intriguing photographs and certainly you will agree with me that this is a true master of black and white photography.

wilfried

book below is available at www.ftn-books.com

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Edward Kienholz and the Beanery

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At the time the Stedelijk Museum reopened again after its long time restoration, I noticed the return of one of my favorites within its collection…..the Beanery. The Beanery is a one on one replica of the local bar Kienholz visited frequently and stands out for me, because of its originality.  It is almost like a surrealist environment in which heads are replaced with clocks.

Kienholz makes environments which you can enter and experience and this Beanery from 1965 is one of his best. Because of the regular wear and tear over the years it had to be restored. There is a nice video on You Tube which gives information on the restauration and shows the importance of this Kienholz work. Lately Kienholz made another project in the Netherlands called HOERENGRACHT of which the catalogue is also available at www.ftn-books.com

 

This is the text the Stedelijk Museum published on the Beanery:

ABOUT THE BEANERY

Edward Kienholz (1927–1994) made The Beanery in 1965, basing it on his local bar, The Original Beanery on Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles. It took Kienholz six months to consolidate and replicate the bar’s content in an artwork. Everything in the installation is life size: from the figures –  inspired by Kienholz’s friends and acquaintances – to the bar, bottles of beer and spirits, ash trays, cash register, telephone book, and jukebox. Even the photos on the wall duplicate those of The Original Beanery.

Remarkably, Kienholz gave each person in his bar a clock for a face, a reference to his fascination with time. Only the barman, modeled after Barney, the bar-owner at that time, has a face. Smelling and sounding like an actual bar, the installation is an evocative sensory experience that visitors are allowed to enter. The typical bar smell is characteristic for the way Kienholz work. The artist made a special recipe: the smell has to be assembled from beer, rancid fat, urine, mothballs and cigarette ash. The scent paste has been made multiple times by the restoration team of the Stedelijk Museum (the urine has been replaced by ammoniac). By coating the work with a synthetic resin the artist instills a sense of mortality and transience, which is amplified by the brown color of the interior, with its evocations of age and decay.

The Beanery is also something of a time capsule. The sign warning “faggots stay out” clearly conveys the intolerant attitudes of American society at the time, while the headlines of the 1964 newspaper in a newspaper dispenser at the door indicate that the United States is on the brink of war with Vietnam. Kienholz came up with the idea of creating his own version of the Beanery in 1958 but commenced work on August 28, 1964, upon reading the headline Children Kill Children in Vietnam Riots while visiting the real bar. The harsh contrast between the “real time” represented by the newspaper headline and the “surreal time” of the bar’s customers impelled Kienholz to start work on the tableau.

wilfried

www.ftn-books.com

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Agnes Martin and Thomas Ammann

Agnes Martin has become one of the greats in Modern Art from the last Fifty years. In 1977 the Stedelijk Museum published an excellent catalogue in which the quality of painting was obvious. Beautiful and impressive design by Wim Crouwel and one that is in worldwide demand because of its design and subject. Since then many catalogues were published on Martin but 2 stand out. The first is the one which was published for the Agnes Martin exhibition in the Josef Albers Museum / Quadrat Bottrop. The catalogue was published in such an excellent way that i had to have one myself for my own collection. The poster is even more special because it is an original silkscreen print in such delicate colour scheme that it reflects in the best way the quality of the work by Agnes Martin. The final book i would like to tell about is the Thomas Ammann  Fine Art catalogue they published in 2008. Large sized book with excellent printing and impressive paintings by Martin. Buy these three titles at www.ftn-books.com and  do not forget to take a look at the impressive poster made for the Quadrat exhibition when i will list this later this month at www.ftn-books.com.

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Instant photography / POLAROID

There was a time when our generation was amazed when we saw the instant result when you took a picture with a Polaroid camera. It was at the end of the seventies that these camera’s were hugely popular and many artists in those days used them to get an immediate result. Recently i only know of Araki who still uses the technique of instant photography.  However , a few weeks ago, a friend of the family took a new camera out of his pocket and showed it to us. It was a similar camera to a Polaroid camera , same technique, but much much smaller. Personally i do not think it will replace the digital photography we all got used to nowadays, but maybe some artists will see new opportunities and will use it in their art. Time will tell.

There are some very nice publications to be found on the technique and the artists that used it. Of course Andy Warhol is one of the best known, but there are many more and this form of art was recognized by the Stedelijk Museum in 1982 with a large exhibition on instant photography. An excellent Wim Crouwel designed catalogue which shows many great examples of INSTANT PHOTOGRAPHY.

 

wilfried

ftn-books.com

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Wim Crouwel + Ellsworth Kelly = Vormen van de Kleur

One of the most spectacular publications in the history of the Stedelijk Museum was the VORMEN VAN DE KLEUR catalogue. A cassette containing biographies on all the participating artists ( a.o. Donald Judd ) and 4 original silkscreens . The silkscreens were published in an edition of only 2200 copies and all had the same basic colors (red, white and blue ).

Ellsworth Kelly, William Turnbull, Bob Bonies and K.G. Pfahler were invited to make a contribution for these silkscreens. 4 square large silkscreens were included in this publication. A challenge too for Wim Crouwel who designed a cardboard container/sleeve in which the loose pages on the participating artists were presented and on top of them the 4 original silkscreens.

Crouwel chose a larger size ( 10.2 x 10.2 inches ) than usual for he thought this to be an important publications too……and it was . It is one of the many highlights in the publication history of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and will be a quintessential catalogue to have if you are a serious collector of Stedelijk Museum material or Wim Crouwel publications, but compared to the other beautiful and collectable SM publications this is in my personal top 5.

Only for FTN-books blog readers there is now a discount of $ 50.00 on this item to be had if you order and use the discount code: CrouwKel (there is only 1 copy available)

Catalogue design by Wim Crouwel, NM+ condition for the sleeve ( see picture), all sheets and silkscreens are in MINT- condition. Book measures 10.6 x 10.6 inches, silkscreens measure 10.2 x 10.2 inches. VORMEN VAN DE KLEUR/NEW SHAPES OF COLOUR. With 4 silkscreens in blue and red by Ellsworth Kelly, Bob Bonies, Georg-Karl Pfahler and William Turnbull. Amst., SM, 1966. Orig. wrappers. Illustr. b/w. 27 sheets. – Trends in abstract art of the past 10 years: Josef Albers, Donald Judd, Frank Stella, Vasarely, Max Bill, Peter Struycken a.o. – Silkscreens printed in 2200 copies. – In slipcase/sleeve

wilfried / www.ftn-books.com