A lyrical abstract artist and related to other abstract French painters like Manessier and Bazaine, Admired by Willem Sandberg , Bissiere received his first Stedelijk Museum exhibition in 1958 and in the early sixties another followed , this time with a spectacular catalogue designed by Wim Crouwel and for me this catalogue is the reason to write this blog, because i find this catalogie one of the very best Wim Crouwel ever made.
Clean, bright with some highly original details, the early smaller size and great typography makes this a Crouwel classic and the art…..well not bad either!
It was the late 50’s and early sixties that a new generation of dutch designers stood up and almost all of them have been of great influence on corporate, furniture and book design all over the world. Kho LIang Ie was one of them. Less known than Sandberg and Crouwel , but still one who’s influence on design is still there. As i understand Pastoe is still making his couch C653, but not only furniture was designed by Kho Lian Ie.
He designed complete exhibitions and ofcourse some beautiful catalogues of which some are available at www.ftn-books.com
To get a good idea of the importance of Kho Liang Ie, visit his website on which is explained in an excellent way the project which he was responsible for and for which he made some great designs. http://www.kholiangie.com
Seven of the items from the above picture are available at www.ftn-books.com
There are many publications of Magnum associated photographers to be found at www.ftn-books.com, but there is one very special one which i would like to emphasize in this blog. There is the publication from 1963. One of the last to be designed by Willem Sandberg and a catalogue for the first of the many MAGNUM exhibitions to be held in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. The SM has a long history with Magnum photography, but this was one of the first to be held in a major museum and because of its design and simplicity it has become a highly desirable and collectable catalogue. The Stedelijk Museum continued to present the Magnum photographers throughout the decades to come , resulting in the 2008 exhibition to commemorate the 60 years of the Magnum agency, but the 1963 is the first and most important one within the series of publications on Magnum and the Stedelijk Museum. Next year the agency will celebrate its 70 years of existence, perhaps a new exhibition in the Stedelijk………..?
Sandberg as a curator admired Matisse as an artist and Sandberg as an artist must have been inspired by Matisse, when he made his famous paper cuttings because of his illness. Matisse himself called it “painting with scissors”. Could this have been the inspiration for Sandberg to use modelled torn papers for his book designs? Because these torn pieces of paper together with the lay-outs made the Sandberg publications highly personal and iconic. There is of course a difference, but the period in which these works of art existed is the same so it is not unlikely that his paper torn pieces were inspired by Matisse. The designs by Sandberg are now in, what are considered, classic publications and now used worldwide as examples of great design .
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Printed on paper, they easily survived 50 years or longer, however it is totally different with the Matisse cut-outs. These have to be restored now to conserve them for future generations and i know of two projects which have taken place in the last 10 years. There is of course the large cut out composition LA PERRUCHE ET LA SIRENE 1952/53 from the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam collection which was totally restored and made future proof for the decades to come and there was a project in the Beyeler in which one could follow the progress of the restoration /conservation of a large canvas titled ACANTHES, 1953.
Both works are on show again in all their splendor and show exactly why Matisse is possibly the greatest artist from last century. Great art in great museums and for those that want to read on both artists…visit www.ftn-books.com for some nice publications.
For me , he is one of the greatest from Last century. Lucio Fontana has had a long career in art and joined several groups, before he became part of the ZERO mouvement.
https://youtu.be/tOPR5YDVpUo
After ZERO he stayed true to his new found form of art in which monochrome paintings were slashed with a sharp Stanley knife or manipulated with his fingers,thus altering the surface with other materials and objects. Glass was one of his favorites to use. Fontana did not become very old, but in his art career of over 40 years he was one of the front runners in Modern Art. Willem Sandberg admired him very much and because of the importance of Zero and this admiration for Fontana, Fontana received his first Amsterdam monographic exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum in 1967. Catalogue design by Wim Crouwel makes this the perfect combination for a great publication. Sandberg/Crouwel and Fontana combined in one publication is hard to beat. Since 1967 , Fontana featured in many group exhibitions on Zero and had solo exhibitions all over the world. Art collectors must pay huge sums of money to acquire a Fontana ( if ever there is one for sale/ there was one at Dorotheum and Sothebys last year, they made specials on youtube on these paintings)
and Museums that have one in their collection are lucky, because his paintings are nowadays “hors catagorie”. What can be had at reasonable prices? Of course some great publication at www.ftn-books.com and whenever you find a MUSEUMJOURNAAL with the special Fontana cover, do not hesitate and ….BUY IT!!!.
Arguably the greatest architect of all time is Frank Lloyd Wright and the villa Fallingwater in Pennsylviania is one of the “must see” buildings i still have on my wish list. The Guggenheim Museum in NY i already visited but Fallingwater not.
FLW was a visionary architect. His designs were the very first modernist designs in architecture and very much based on constructivist principles. I just learned that as a child he build buildngs with FROBEL blocks and these wooden blocks must have been an endless source of inspiration. FLW was an architect whose designs were practically all executed in the USA, but that does not mean that one can not find FLW inspired buildings elsewhere. For instance, in the Netherlands his designs were admired by the DE STIJL mouvement and Dudok and van ‘t Hoff made buildings inspired by FLW.
A great architect and fortunately we had in the past decades several large exhibitions on his architecture and projects . One of the first was the exhibition in the Boymans van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam in 1952. What makes it even more special is that it was one of the first designs Benno Wissing made for the Boymans museum.
Wissing since 1952 has had a tremendous career and is, together with Sandberg and Crouwel one of the absolute great designers from the last century. So visit www.ftn-books.com and search for Frank Lloyd Wright or Benno Wissing and discover the many beautiful books both these great artist have made over the years.
Same decade, same museum, same curator and same designer for the catalogue. A week ago i wrote about Arne Jacobsen, but in the sixties another Jacobsen was given an exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum too. Robert Jacobsen had a solo exhibition in 1960 and his friend Willem Sandberg designed the catalogue for it. This time his approach was different because within the catalogue a special compartment was made in which an exhibition poster could be folded and sold together with the catalogue. This meant that most of the catalogues which are sold nowadays, lack the poster because in most cases it is or was sold separately. Both items are Willem Sandberg designs , so both are very much worth collecting. Beside the great design by Sandberg Robert Jacobsen is of course a magnificent artist too and after his Sixties exhibition in the Stedelijk i know of only one location in Europe, the Louisiana Museum, in which his works were presented. Most of his exhibitions took place in museums and galleries the US.
The print beside the portrait of Jacobsen is available at www.ftn-books.com as are the book titles on this page.
Danish design…Hot in the sixties and now timeless in 21th century. If you look at Danish design over the last 70 years you conclude one thing and that is these Danisg designers are masters with plywood. This technology of molding wood is also used by Ray and Charles Eames, but for me Arne Jacobsen is the greatest. He made so many beautiful and classic designs, one could wish one had a bigger house to show all this beautiful furniture.
But beside furniture Jacobsen had another discipline in which he excelled….architecture
also simple and beautiful and because these architectural designs are not extravagant they are truly timeless like his furniture is. In the 50’s this true artist met Willem Sandberg and resulted in an excellent exhibition which was organized by the Stedelijk Museum in 1959. Accompanied by a typical and one of the best Sandberg designed catalogues from the Fifties. books available at www.ftn-books.com
100% Spanish and an artist who was in the middle of all in the sixties /seventies. The first time i encountered work by Miguel Berrocal must have been somewhere in 1970. One of the furniture design shops ( Studio 40) had a little statue with the interlocking pieces which fitted together perfectly and acted like a multi pieces puzzle. I was impressed, but never associated this with art. It more was a gimmick to me. Later i saw the artistic qualities of Berrocal and now for me Berrocal is one of the sculptors who deserves to be recognized as one of the great sculptors from Spain.
If it was this statue i do not remember….., but these small statues consisting of several pieces were Berrocal’s trademark. People admired him in those days, but one decade later practically all had forgotten him. I always admired these little, beautiful pieces of art, but never had a chance to acquire one for our collection. However what i did find and added to the inventory of www.ftn-books.com were several rare and highly collectable publications including a Jan van Toorn designed poster. These books are as much collectable as his statues , because the edition size is small and because of the exceptional way these are published they are well worth collecting.
If there is one iconic ZERO catalogue it is the very first ZERO catalogue published with the ZERO exhibition of 1963. SO here are the photographs which makes this very important catalogue available to all. catalogue for sale at www.ftn-books.com
NUL stedelijk MueumNul Stedelijk MuseumNul Stedelijk MuseumNUL SM
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
