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Martin Rous (1939)

Rous

Another decade or so…..and i predict that Martin Rous Jr. will be one of the most wanted artists in the Netherlands. Rous has stayed true to his abstract devisions of space and surface. Using canvas , paper and prints to make his message clear to the viewer. In the beginning i did not like the works by Martin Rous, but over time i learned to look at these fascinating works and objects. Learning to see the subtile differences in using lines and dividing space and now i am actively searching to buy some of his works. Wether it is a drawing or a large painting….. It does not matter whatever comes first has my interest. A good thing to know is that i already have a small library with his books and the duplicate copies are available at http://www.ftn-books.com.

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Mirjam Hagoort (1961)

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I have in my FTN-books collection an CBK Rotterdam catalogue on Mirjam Hagoort, published in the early Nineties it shows the works by Hagoort as a young artist . Big almost geometrical paintings with words and sayings, a bit like Ed Ruscha, but while preparing this blog on Hagoort i noticed a change in her work. Nowadays her drawings are much like Marcel van Eeden his daily drawings. They have the same look and feel.

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The paintings however are different. Here she shines with a kind of abstraction that make her early paintings from the Nineties such appealing works of art. With the recent paintings she combines abstraction and architecture into great works of art.

hagoort a

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Jiří Georg Dokoupil (1954)…continued

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The follow up of a blog which i published on the 18th of December 2018 is a short blog on my recent additions of 4 Doukoupil publications that i recently found and bought on my local bookmarket. The ArT RANDOM is not the rarest o them, but still a nice one to collect, since it contains the THE MADRID PAINTINGS. Blurred images that are certainly recognizable in black and white, making these extra powerful paintings. The other publiucations are my personal favorites . 3 volumes of the Dokoupil drawings series. The volumes I, II and III are now combined for sale at www.ftn-books.com

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Henri Cartier-Bresson…his drawings

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Henri Cartier-Bresson, known for his photographs and member of the Magnum agency will always be remembered for his fantastic photographs he has made during his life,

but what i did not know and discovered recently is that he also was a very talented artist. Last week i purchased a book on his drawings. An artistic quality of this artist i was not aware of, but leafing through the book i found that his drawings have an almost impressionist quality.

These drawings were made in the last 3 decades of his life but show that he has the same approach to a drawing as with his photographs. Perhaps his photographs were the origin of the drawing….i do not know, but abstraction and mouvement within the same drawing show that his mind worked the same with making a drawing and taking a photograph. The book; Henri Cartier-Bresson / Zeichnungen is now available at www.ftn-books.com

bresson zeichnungen

Henri Cartier-Bresson (French: [kaʁtje bʁɛsɔ̃]; August 22, 1908 – August 3, 2004) was a French humanist photographer considered a master of candid photography, and an early user of 35 mm film. He pioneered the genre of street photography, and viewed photography as capturing a decisive moment. His work has influenced many photographers.

Henri Cartier-Bresson was born in Chanteloup-en-Brie, Seine-et-Marne, France, the oldest of five children. His father was a wealthy textile manufacturer, whose Cartier-Bresson thread was a staple of French sewing kits. His mother’s family were cotton merchants and landowners from Normandy, where Henri spent part of his childhood. The Cartier-Bresson family lived in a bourgeois neighborhood in Paris, Rue de Lisbonne, near Place de l’Europe and Parc Monceau. His parents supported him financially so Henri could pursue photography more freely than his contemporaries. Henri also sketched.

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Piet Dirkx weekly

Another beautiful Christmas/New Years card for 2008. In the bottom of the photograph are 4 drawings of Piet Dirkx ” flowers”

dirkx ny 2008

dirkx ny 2008 b

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Gerard Verdijk at the Kunstmuseum Den Haag

Readers of this blog know of my admiration for Gerard Verdijk. It is a pleasure to know and announce that once again there is a large exhibition being held at a major dutch museum. This time the Kunstmuseum Den Haag ( Gemeentemuseum Den Haag ) has an exhibition which opens on the 29th of February and will close on the 13th of April.

( the invitation depicts ” fetish + tabou” from 2000 )

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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

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

 

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Robine Clignett (1947)

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It was by chance that i stumbled upon the works by Robine Clignett. Instantly recognizable art….. a combination of constructivist art which is further abstracted and put in a lansdscape which is abstracted also….i instantly liked it very much and it was added to my collection because i bought some graphic works by dutch artist from a small collection and the drawing that is below was within that collection.

clignett b

 

I had to save it by carefully removing it from its backing board and what was left was an excellent Drwaing/watercolor by Robine Clignett. I contacted her that i had by chance bought this handcolored drawing and she was delighted to know where it now was. She excplained the difference in dating and confirmed the authenticity of the work. And now…. it is for sale, not because it is not appreciated but the colors do not match with anything in our interior. I hung it for several month upstairs but even there it does not match and shows its true qualities. So the drawing/ watercolor is now looking for a new home and is available at http://www.ftn-blog.com/ the FTN ART SECTION

The drawing is depicted on the Robine Clignett site. Robine Clignett has regular exhibitions at Maurits van der Laar gallery

Without title

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Barry Flanagan (1941-2009)

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Barry Flanagan, a protege of Rudi Fuchs, presented this artist at different venues on several occasions. The van Abbemuseum and the Stedelijk Museum among them. This way creating a platform for this artist who, after the exhibitions in dutch museums , could count on a loyal following of admirers. He began his career as a minimalist working in folded cloth, but later became Britain’s best-known and most controversial modernist, internationally renowned for his colossal bronze figures of leaping hares.

That said i personally am impressed with his small scale art. His drawings, linocuts and lithographs are like dreamlike landscapes with an abstract twist and bright colors, making these far more intimate. For us in the Netherlands it is still hard to find the nice publications published on this artist, because the edition size was on all occasions “small”. Less than 1000 copies were produced of his catalogue of which most part was over the years destroyed. His following may be loyal and admiring, but it is too small too sell a complete edition of his art catalogues. www.ftn-books.com has some Flanagan titles available.

 

 

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Dennis Oppenheim (1938-2011)

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An artist i never heard of before , but since the exhibition of Alice Aycock in the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag i know of him and his art and later of course i found out that there was an excellent exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in 1974, which catalogue is available at www.ftn-books.com

Why is that?…Oppenheim was married to Alice Aycock and many of the exhibition venues presented both these artist shortly after each other

And what about Dennis Oppenheim? For me Oppenheim stands for conceptual and performance art. His “earthworks” have become famous and on the cover of the stedelijk Museum catalogue one is depicted. BTW. the Stedelijk catalogue was designed by Wim Crouwel and he made it, because of the use of a beautiful impressive photograph of one of the earthworks, stand out from the rest.

If i compare both artist , I definitely have more interest in the large sculptures by Alice Aycock, but Oppenheim is important too and time will tell which of them will be the most important one…. my guess it will be the wife …Alice Aycock.

In 2011 Oppenheim died of pancreas cancer