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Auguste Lepère (1849-1918)

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Auguste Lepere stood at the cradle of the rebirth of wood engraving in Europe and is considered to be one of the best from that era. Hardly known and almost forgotten by all, his art was rediscovered by some gallery owners in Europe and the US and since his star is rising again. And deservedly. …. just take a look at these 2 engravings and je instantly see quality in ssnene, composition and technique.

 

At age thirteen, Auguste Louis Lepère began his artistic education in the Paris studio of the engraver Joseph Burn-Smeeton. By the mid-1870s, Lepère had clearly emerged as one of the most renowned printmakers of his time.

Lepère focused mostly on daily life in both his etchings and wood engravings. He is now renowned for his innovations, such as the use of colored paper, or the combining of etching and wood engraving on the same print. The last years of Auguste Lepère’s life were given almost exclusively to wood engraving. In total, his graphic oeuvre consists of over 150 etchings, over 200 wood engravings and 14 lithographs.

www.ftn-books.com has one gallery exhibition catalogue on Lepere available. A special one which includes a 1990 price list.

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Bridget Riley (1931) now a permanent part of the National Gallery building.

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I love the walldrawings by contemporary artists. First in a long line of artists, there is Sol LeWitt. I witnessed the execution of several of his drawings in the rooms and staircases of the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag and they fascinated me all.

Then there is Niele Toroni who makes his wall drawings with a single brush and color

and now there is another artist who i admire who have executed a permanent walldrawing, this time at the National Gallery. Yes,…this is permanent and a part of their collection. The last time i had seen  a large walldrawing by Bridget Riley is when she executed one at the Gemeentemuseum in 2012 when she was presented the Sikkens prijs.

An excellent Leperello catalogue was published on that occasion

This beautiful leperello catalogue is available at www.ftn-books.com

Location: Annenberg Court

Spanning a vast 10 x 20 metres, the work comprises coloured discs painted directly onto the surface of the Gallery’s Annenberg Court.

The title, ‘Messengers’, is inspired by a phrase Constable used when referring to clouds, and might also be an allusion to the numerous angels, bearers of news, that we see in the skies of so many National Gallery pictures. 

Painted directly onto the wall of the Annenberg Court, this abstract work carries influences from our historic collection over into the 21st century. Throughout art history, harmonies of colour have played a large part in pictorial composition.Taking as a point of departure the paintings of George Seurat, in particular Bathers at Asnières, Bridget Riley’s ‘Messengers’ transforms the Annenberg Court into a great white space in which coloured discs float as clouds drift in the lanes of the sky. By leaving after-images on the viewer’s retina that suggest volume and movement the longer it is perceived, the work becomes a tribute to its artistic predecessors and to the process of looking at art itself.

Bridget Riley (born 1931) has a long-standing relationship with the Gallery; she made copies of paintings in the collection including Jan van Eyck’s Portrait of a Man (Self Portrait?), 1433, as a teenager as part of her portfolio when applying to Goldsmiths College, London, just after the end of the Second World War, and Georges Seurat’s Bathers at Asnières while training as an artist. 

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“Fugare” (1960)

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First there was VERVE, later Fugare and finally de Nieuwe Haagse School.

Nowadays dutch art lovers know exactly what is meant by DE NIEUWE HAAGSE SCHOOL. it is a group of artist who lived and worked in Den Haag and met regularly in Pulchris Studio, de Posthoorn and de Haagse Kunstkring. But before this there was FUGARE. this FUGARE society was founded by George Lampe on the 26th of January 1960

The result? an artist mouvement with particpating artist that met regularly and inspired each other and held their exhibitions at the best venues in those days. Exhibitions were held at the Haags Gemeentemuseum, Stedelijk Museum, van Abbemuseum and Pulchri Studio. There was  a place for all in Fugare. Jan van Heel painted figures and Willem Hussem abstract paintings and everything in between was appreciated as long as you were an active member who visited the meetings. Fugare is impiortant for dutch abstract painting and some nice Fugare publications are availabel at www.ftn-books.com

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Michel Seuphor (1901-1999)

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Michel Seuphor…wrote a monumental biography on Piet Mondriaan and is one of the great names in constructivist art by himself. In the twenties he became friends with Joaquin Torres Garcia. For me their works are worlds apart from each other but somehow they became friends and started the artist mouvement CERCLE ET CARRE.

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the Netherland was not too far away for Seuphor …the result he had his exhibitions at galleries and museum in the Netherlands. Specially DEN HAAG was a well now city for him. He spent much time at the Gemeentemuseum to study Mondrian for his biography on this famous dutch abstract painter and ….he had an exhibition of his own at the Gemeentemuseum, soon followed with a gallery exhibition at the Nouvelles Images gallery ( closed now) . Both catalogues and a print by Seuphor are available at www.ftn-books.com

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Marinus Boezem (1934)

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Marinus Boezem (1934) belongs, together with Jan Dibbets and Ger van Elk, among the most important representatives of the Conceptual Art and Arte Povera movement in The Netherlands. In the 1960s, Boezem discovered that he could use elusive elements such as air, weather, wind and light as visual materials and made a name with radical, immaterial works that were far ahead of their time. Boezem was one of the initiators of the ground-breaking exhibition ‘Op Losse Schroeven: Situaties en Cryptostructuren’ (1969) at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and took part in the equally influential exhibition ‘When Attitudes Become Form’ at the Kunsthalle Bern in the same year.

In 1969 he created one of his most famous works of art, ‘Signing the Sky Above The Port of Amsterdam With an Aeroplane, 1969’: exactly as stated in its title, an aircraft’s condensation trails were used to spell out Boezem’s surname in the sky, the ephemeral wording disappearing almost as soon as it was created. In 1971 he made an artwork for television that was broadcast under the auspices of Gerry Shum’s legendary Fernseh Gallery. Furthermore, Boezem created numerous works in public space and land art. The Green Cathedral is a beautiful example: 174 Italian poplar trees are planted to reproduce the floor plan and measurements of the Cathedral at Reims, in a flat polder near Almere, the Netherlands.

In an oeuvre spanning more than sixty years, Marinus Boezem has created a body of work that stands quite independently in contemporary art. His works are part of many important museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Gemeentemuseum Den Haag; Museum Kröller-Muller, Otterloo; Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar; and many more public art collections.

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Josef Albers Nesting Tables 1926/27

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This set of tables i first encountered at the Josef Albers Museum in Bottrop where two types of these set were sold. One with colored perspex and one set with original italian fabricated glass. I had to had this and i ordered one set direectly from the manufacturer. These are so impressive and 100% like the original set which was originally designed at the Bauhasu by Josef Albers and thnis reedition from 2010 is one of the best small furniture items ever produced. I checked and this set is still available, but not as cheap as it originally was in 2010, but choose this set and you will have the pleasure of looking at one of the greatest functional Bauhaus designs ever made. Klein und More sells the original authorised set in Europe  and the Moma stora sells a set in their store for the US. Josef Albers is one of the artist of whom ww.ftn-books.com sells many items

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MIGUEL YBÁÑEZ (1946)

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Born in Spain, but living and working for practically his entire artistic life in the Netherlands, he has managed to build a strong following of avid collectors, culminating in a Museum presentation at the Museum van der Togt.

Intense colours and bold gestures articulate Ybáñez’ paintings. Although largely communicating through abstraction, Ybáñez sometimes hints at the figurative world. However, these figurative elements have become distorted by interlacement of planes and extensive re-working of painted layers, creating complex structures and depth. The play of dimensionality is reminiscent of early Cubist painting. The Cubists, were inspired by elements of the visible world that they reduced form 3-D to 2-D, in contrast, Ybáñez creates a new dimensionality. The artist prefers innovation over conformity, therefore, to him, the tangible world has its limitations and a new visual language emerges.

Ybáñez is an intellectual with a sardonic sense of humour. Through his titles the artist enjoys creating seemingly bizarre connections. In fact, Ybáñez’s work belongs to the realm of philosophy and metaphysics, a world that defies traditional logic.

Ybáñez works in the tradition of Arte Povera and embraces a range of techniques to create works of varying scale and form. His reliefs, sculptures and assemblages are made of cloth, cardboard, metal, plaster and found objects. The resulting works are unified by an overall off-white finish which imbues the forms with a timeless and ethereal presence. In his work Ybáñez strives to negate the boundaries between past and present, ‘high’ and ‘low’ art.

The artist won numerous awards including the Premio de Dibujo, Galiana, Spain, 1979 and the Premio de Pintura Congreso de los Diputados, Madrid, Spain, 1985

www.ftn-books.com has several Ybanez titles available

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Lord Snowdon a typical British photographer (1930-2017)

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I do not want to write about this British Gentleman who once was married with Princess Margaret , the younger sister of Queen Elizabeth II, but about the very talented photographer who he was.

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Of course British royalty figured frequently in his photographs, But since i added the book STILLS 1983-1987 to the collection of www.ftn-books.com, my admiration for him as a photographer was established instantly. These are among the best “Stills/ portraits”  i have ever seen and deserve to be admired by all who love photography. Among them portraits of Royalty like the Queen, Diana, Bowie and Twiggy. Here is arguably the ultimate 60’s British photographer.

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galerie du Dragon (1955-1995)

 

I recently noticed that i have several publications by galerie du Dragon in my inventory

Founded in 1955 and always at the location of 19, rue du Dragon in Paris this galerie is together with galerie Denise Rene one of the grand old institutions in the Parisian art scene. For over 40 years they were representing modern artist like Matta and Carelman,

For those who can read french….. Here is a part from an article on the galerie du Dragon in which ll the famous names of the artists that have made a contribution to the gallerie’s fame are mentioned:

Grâce au soutien de nombreux artistes, le jeune poète Max Clarac-Sérou reprend le bail de la librairie et en fait une galerie d’art à partir de 1955, véritable foyer de découvertes et de contacts : la Galerie du Dragon. De jeunes poètes, comme Edouard Glissant, Alain Jouffroy ou Michel Butor y retrouvent des écrivains plus âgés, Henri Michaux ou Gherasim Luca. Ils y croisent des artistes, peintres ou plasticiens, comme Giacometti, Matta ou Victor Brauner. De solides amitiés voient le jour, dans la fréquentation du lieu, où Max Clarac-Sérou ou Cécilia Ayala organisent les expositions : sur l’art cubain contemporain, en 1961, ou sur le thème de Seul, et le corps, en 1966, réunissant pour l’occasion des œuvres de Balthus, Bellmer, César, Cremonini, Dali, Giacometti, Magritte et Matta..