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Paul Huf and Ajax (1967)

 

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Ajax is a famous dutch soccer team and Paul Huf was one of the society photographers in the Sixties. Huf was commissioned this photograph to portray the most famous of Ajax players from those years. In the picture…..Johan Cruijff, Piet Keizer, Klaas Nuninga and mister Ajax himself Sjaak Swart. This photograph has become iconic and was in 1997 chosen to be the picture for the Paul Huf exhibition at the Groninger Museum. Swip Stolk designed a beautiful , typical Stolk design, poster for this exhibition which is now for sale at www.ftn-books.com

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Paul Huf (1924-2002), son of actor Paul Huf Sr., is still the Netherlands’ most famous (portrait) photographer. He portrayed many well-known Dutch people, but was also known for his advertising photography (for example, the beer campaign of Grolsch) and fashion photography. Huf’s photographs are glamorous and have an almost un-Dutch allure. Legendary was his series of sixty record covers in color, for classical music commissioned by Philips in 1954. Huf also made films, including a documentary portrait of painter Carel Willink (1975). He was, together with colleague Eva Besnyö, involved in the foundation of Photomuseum Amsterdam, now known as FOAM.

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Milan Kunc (1944)

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Milan Kunc makes art on the cross roads of Memphis design meeting Picasso with a dash of childrens drawings and with a color palet that is endless. I managed to collect quite some titles by Kunc during the last two decades, because the Netherlands was fortunate to hold exhibitions at the galerie Swart , Groninger Museum ( 1984, large retrospective curated by Frans Haks), Stedelijk Museum and the Boymans van Beuningen museum. Many publications were the result , add to these the catalogues that were published with every gallery presentation in Europe and the result is a stack of publications , many artists would wish they had the same number of publications.

What strikes me every time i leaf through these books i find his work appealing, but in many cases i find it just too much absurd fantasies by the artist. Still this is, according to others, one of the qualities Kunc has. He exaggerates and creates scenes with many layers, but for me after some time they stop working and i am in need of a new ” surprising” composition. Milan Kunc is certainly a great artist, with many beautiful publications, but personally i prefer other artists. www.ftn-books.com has some nice Milan Kunc publications available.