People following this blog know of my admiration for Willem Sandberg. The iconic director of the STEDELIJK MUSEUM AMSTERDAM who brought the greatest of contemporary art to Amsterdam in the Fifties and early sixties.
9 years after WWII and after the initial opening years from 1945, the Stedelijk presented an overview of the most important art they had acquired during these years. With the exhibition a catalog was published with Sandberg graphic design on te cover. Few people know that beside the red version another version was published with a yellow cover. The yellow version was published in only a few hundred copies and both are now available at www.ftn-books.com
Located west of Rio de Janeiro, the site exemplifies a successful project developed over 40 years by landscape architect and artist Roberto Burle Marx (1909-1994) to create a “living artwork” and a “landscape laboratory,” utilizing native plants and drawing inspiration from modernist ideas. Initiated in 1949, the garden possesses the key characteristics that came to define Burle Marx’s landscape gardens and greatly influenced the development of modern gardens worldwide. Its features include sinuous shapes, exuberant mass plantings, carefully arranged architectural plants, dramatic color contrasts, the use of tropical flora, and the incorporation of elements from traditional folk culture. By the late 1960s, the site housed the most comprehensive collection of Brazilian plants, alongside other rare tropical species. The site now cultivates 3,500 species of tropical and subtropical flora in harmony with the native vegetation of the region, including mangrove swamps, restinga (a distinct type of tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forest), and the Atlantic Forest. Sítio Roberto Burle Marx embodies an ecological concept of form as a process, emphasizing social collaboration as the basis for the preservation of environment and culture. It is the first modern tropical garden to be included in the World Heritage List.
www.ftn-books.com has the SM 161 / Stedelijk Museum on Burle Marx now available. Published in 1956 and designed by Sandberg makes this small and scarce publication one of the first on Landscape architecture and Burle Marx.
Readers know of my admiration for Willem Sandberg, who I can consider as one of the true geniuses of design. and ….typography. One who knows the series of publications on Typography : EXPERIMENTA TYPOGRAFICA, knows that he used these books to stretch the boundaries of typography, inventing in his own way a new series of fonts and designs. This series has been published over a period of some 10 years , making use of several publishers that supported the idea of the series. Andre Schwerz with Reflex and Galerie der Spiegel are among them. Some of these highly collectible titles are now available at www.ftn-books.com
Willem Sandberg was truly one of the best duthc graphic designers from the last century. I always have been focussing on all Stedelijk Museum material that was published in the last century and now I can add to my inventory some great designs by Willem Sandberg of which 2 are signed. All items are now available at www.ftn-books.com
Roger Bissiere held an exhibition in 1958 at the Stedelijk Museum. Catalogue and poster were designed by Willem Sandberg. In 1966 it was again time for Bissiere to show his latest works. This time Wim Crouwel designed both catalogue and poster. With the poster he was inspired by the one Sandberg had designed before. The poster is almost classic Sandberg in its approach. Colors, graphic design. red lettering all strongly influenced by Sandberg. But the catalogue!…there it was ….a typical Crouwel design…., size, binding, colors every aspect oozes Crouwel. Here are both and both are available at www.ftn-books.com.
Today another combination. The year 10 years later. More experiments were done and the result is two different approaches to the design by Willem Sandberg . One with torn out letters and the other with layers of art combined into a designed poster. Both fascinating and available at www.ftn-books.com.
A few weeks ago i started to persent the combination of catalogue and poster published with an exhibition. The initial blogs were on publications designed by Wim Crouwel, but to day and tomorrw i will show you 2 combinations by another great…WILLEM SANDBERG
The first is for the Andre Bauchant ehibition in 1949.
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This is almost 1 on 1. You of color and background are the same. The fonts however are different.
I proud myself in having one of the largest Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam collections available for sale on the internte and i just added a extremely scarce item i want to share with you. I always was under the impression that from the mid Seventies the larger museums in the Netherlands started their educational programs to attract the young and school pupils to the museums.
I was wrong….
Recently i discovered in one of the 1960 catalogues a folder which was added which shows that the Stedelijk Musdeum had its own educational program in 1960. The 6 page folder, probably designed by Willem Sandberg shows an event specially organized for the very young to come to the museum and have fun. An “art” party for the young organized by the STEDELIJK in which childeren of all ages were entertained and encouraged to practisize their own art. A great and important collectable item available at www.ftn-books.com
This time a double bill of Renato Guttuso and Alan Davie. Two exhibions both held at the Stedelijk Museum at the end of 1962. It is rumored that this poster was designed by Sandberg , but the execution of it done by ten Have. Still i love this poster .. The red and green indicate the hand of Sandberg and the simplicity of it makes this a highly important historical poster for the Stedelijk Museum. Both poster and catalogues of the exhibitions are available at www.ftn-books.com
Artist/ Author: Oliver Boberg
Title : Memorial
Publisher: Oliver Boberg
Measurements: Frame measures 51 x 42 cm. original C print is 35 x 25 cm.
Condition: mint
signed by Oliver Boberg in pen and numbered 14/20 from an edition of 20
