Tag: haags

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Donald Judd and the Sikkens prijs ’93

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In 1993 Donald Judd was awarded the Sikkens Prijs for his radical approach to Modern Art. It was a well deserverd award for an artist who stood at the brink of Minimal Art and founded one of the most inspiring artists “colonies” in Marfa texas.

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Not much later Judd died in 1994 of Cancer, but his art remains and has proven to be (arguably) being the most important art made in the 20th century. The Stedelijk Museum and the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag both have some very important Judd’s in their collections and over time these works have not lost their appeal. I am personally convinced that in a few decades , the Minimal art by Judd is considered to be of the highest importance in the development of Modern Art/ http://www.ftn-books.com has the Judd publication published with the Sikkens Award ao. available .

judd sik a

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NUL/Zero and Al Held exhibition

This can not be coincidence…. On the left there is the NUL exhibition catalogue for the Peeters, Armando, Schoonhoven exhibition and on the right there is the Al Held catalogue from 1966 , designed by Wim Crouwel for the Held exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. The white fond and the strong circle part on the back must have impressed Crouwel, since he used almost exactly the same layout as the ZERO/NUL catalogue which was published 2 years earlier for the Haags Gemeentemuseum exhibition.

http://www.ftn-books.com has both catalogues available and of course the special stitched multiple by Henk Peeters which was published shortly before his death.

echt peeters aa

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A recently discovered Mondrian

A few weeks ago i read an article by the  “de Speld”  ( it is an almost daily article on the backpages of the VOLKSKRANT paper), that a recently discovered Mondrian was presented to the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag to further complete its large Mondrian collection .

mondriaan smurf

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Jack B. Yeats (1871-1957)

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Never heard of Yeats as a painter, until Rudi Fuchs curated an exhibition with his paintings at the Haags Gemeentemuseum and it was a nice surprise. His painting is spontane , a little childish and impressionistic at the same time and thus resulting in a painting what is typical for Yeats with a signature of its own. The exhibition was not that large and i remember that the sizes of the paintings were not that large too.

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What i do remember was the excellent catalogue Gracia Lebbink designed with the exhibition. It was one of her first lareg catalogues she made for the Gemeentemuseum but it has proven to be a classic and available at www.ftn-books.com

yeats

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Henry Moore (1898-1986)

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There has always been a fascination for Henry Moore and his works by the dutch. Since the beginning of his career he has had exhibitions at all the major museums in the Netherlands, which resuklted in purchses by museums and privste collectors. One of the last collectors to add a major work by Moore was Joop Caldenborgh who added a very large bronze sculpture by the artist. It was one of the last sculptures he added to his collection before he build the Voorlinden museum.

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My guess is that eventually his majestic sculpture garden including the Moore and Sol LeWiit sculptures, will be integrated with the Museum Voorlinden.

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I love the large Henry Moore that is outside the Schamhart building at the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag and learned to truly love this one , because it was my outside view at the Gemeentemuseum when i had my office over there. Later i moved to the offices at the Museum of education and had the complete Berlage building as my view, but the office with the Henry Moore in front and a Rijsselberghe painting in our room was a great place to work.

Since there is a long history of Henry Moore exhibitions in the Netherlands , i have collected many important Henry Moore catalogues of which the Stedelijk Museum one stands out since this one is designed by Willem Sandberg.

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Haags Gemeentemuseum 1971 HUIS IN – HUIS UIT

I have been working at the Haags Gemeentemuseum for nearly 25 years . I have been moving somewhere around 1.000.000+ books in all these years and never…never…. seen this title before. I am an independent antiquarian bookseller for almost 20 years now and within these years i must have seen evn more books and never encountered this title before, so i did not know it existed, but it is there and it appears to be important too, because it is one of the first exhibitions which combines fashion and interior design over the ages and shows examples of each period. For those of you who did not know it existed. Here it is how it looks. The book is now available at www.ftn-books.com

huis in huis uit

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Tineke Griffioen retires on 12/1/2018

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Finally, after 43 years of being one of the most loyal and dependent employees of the Gemeentemuseum  Den Haag, Tineke Griffioen decided to retire from her jobs at the museum. From Prentenkabinet to DTP she made not only a career within the museum, but was also very much involved into the well being of her colleagues. The museum will miss this very friendly and dependent employee who had an expertise in prints and drawings. The set depicted in this blog comes from a Siep van den Berg sketch book he made in France in 1990 and shows that the following pages from the book were not accidentally filled in, but that each drawing developed into a very nice Constructivist composition. This very set was presented to Tineke for being the colleague that she has always been to me….Thank you and have a great retirement!

tineke berg

PS. Other sets are available at www.ftn-books.com , Please inquire

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Alice Aycock (1946)

1983, Just 3 years after i started my career at the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, the museum made an exhibition with Alice Aycock. Within the Schamhart buidling the complete floor was covered with large kinetic sculptures by Aycock and at that time i could not appreciate them at all. Now 35 year later i wished i had the same knowledge at that time that i have know, because recently i leafed through the catalogue and it struck met that these works were not only great in dimensions, but even after 35 years fascinating. Where Tinguely made his kinetic sculptures in the Sixties. Aycock made them in much more modern and industrialized/high tech versions in the Eighties and after. Alice Aycock has received international fame with her sculptures.

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What remains to me is a wonderful catalogue ( available at http://www.ftn-books.com) and the memory of meeting a great artist and beautiful woman back in 1983.

To give an impression of her more recent works here is a video on her 2010 presentation:

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Jan Toorop ( 1858-1928)… a 19th century dutch master

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If there is one artist who brought impressionism into dutch art, it must be Jan Toorop. Roughly you can divide his artistic career into 4 phases. The first being his impressionist period ( a memberof Les XX), the second his neo impressionist period, the third being his symbolistic period and the last period is his realistic period in which he was converted completely into a Roman Catholic artist. Toorop is interesting because of his first 3 periods. Being born in Indonesia he has a different approach to his subjects and experiments with techniques and colors and uses a color scheme completely different from his dutch contemporaries. They focussed on skies and landscapes , whereas Toorop focussed on people and their surroundings. There are some great examples to be found in the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag of his very early period where he painted with a palette knife and broad brushes. His very atmospheric scenes in London, a city where he lived for a couple of years and where he painted some great paintings. The “Trio Fleuri” is one of the most appealing painting from his London years, together with the Waterloo Bridge painting and both can be seen in the collection of the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag.

and for those interested in Modern Art. A great painting by Toorop that symbolizes the dawn and rise of Modern Art in this world.

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There are some nice publications on Toorop available at www.ftn-books.com

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Johannes Gachnang (1939-2005)…quality publications

 

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The first time i met Gachnang was during an exibition at the Haags Gemeentemuseum when he visited his friend Rudi Fuchs , who was at that time the director of the Gemeentemuseum. I remembered an unpleasant person, but Rudi wanted the publications by Gachnang to be sold at the shop of the Gemeentemuseum and i was critical about them. It was not that i was not convinced of the art within these publications, but the art by Gachnang was so personal and i thought “strange” that i did not see any selling possibilities for them. Years later, i started to encounter his works in museums and found them far more accessible than i first had thought they were. ALL Gachnang publication have a certain quality and belong to the best publications on art in the last 3 decades of the 20th century and some of them are available at www.ftn-books.com

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