November 8, 2009
Oh, to have been a child in the 1920s, when you had children’s books illustrated in the De Stijl style. Gouden Vlinders, the cover of which pictured above, contained verse written by S. Franke and illustrations by Lou Loebe.
Pointed out to us by Daddytypes.com who also discusses and links to a number of other illustrated Dutch children’s books he likes. All are hosted at Geheugenvannederland.nl, a website of the Royal Library.
Tags: 1920s, books, children's books, Royal Library
October 23, 2009
Wessel van Offeren seems to think shopping is war. His shopping cart with caterpillar tracks was spotted at the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven by Trendbeheer.
(Photo: Trendbeheer / E.Rosie, some rights reserved)
Tags: Dutch Design Week
October 22, 2009
Back in May, we told you about the Scheringa Museum getting robbed at gunpoint. That’s right, the museum named after Dirk Scheringa, art collector and owner of the museum as well as director of the very recently bankrupted Dutch DSB bank.
Not only did the museum reopen its doors on 21 October, but you no longer have to pay the 7 euro to get in: it’s free, since it’s only half full. Although the robbery only deprived the museum of a priceless Dali and a Lempicka, the Dutch ABN Amro bank has confiscated Scheringa’s entire collection, resulting in a half empty museum. In some halls on the nails that held up many a painting notes have been placed by staff asking visitors to leave their comments about the ‘situation’.
(Link: trouw, Photo: postdam.blogspot.com)
Tags: Dirk Scheringa, DSB Bank, Scheringa Museum
October 18, 2009
English translations of Vincent van Gogh’s letters to his brother Theo have been released in a 6 volume boxed set by the Van Gogh Museum in a 15-year-long cooperation with the Huygens Instituut. The original letters in French and Dutch have also been reproduced.
The entire set contains all the pictures referenced in the letters, that is, all 4,300 of them, The Guardian reports.
If you don’t feel like shelling out the 325 UKP that the set is undoubtedly worth, you can also read the letters and their translations at vangoghletters.org. The Huygens Instituut is part of the Dutch academy for sciences.
Story via Eamelje.net (Dutch), who in a totally unrelated story also points out that another Dutch giant of the 19th century, writer Multatuli, published his masterpiece Max Havelaar 150 years ago last Tuesday. The Havelaar has been in translation for a long time, and a public domain English version can be found at Google Books.
If you do not like PDF or EPUB, you might be able to extract the HTML version from the EPUB file (which is just a ZIP archive under a different name).
Tags: copyright, Eduard Douwes Dekker, Max Havelaar, Multatuli, public domain, Vincent van Gogh
October 13, 2009
As of 26 October, the Mondriaan house museum in Amersfoort will be holding an exhibition entitled ‘Steven Aalders verbindt…’ (‘Steven Aalders connects’), which apparently must be viewed by one visitor at a time for 60 minutes. The idea is to turn the museum into a silent place where visitors can ‘let the art wash over them’ and ‘enjoy the empty spaces of the halls’. The exhibition features sculptures, architecture and music.
Yes, Piet Mondriaan (or anglicised to ‘Mondrian’) is that Dutch artist who went from painting landscapes and flowers to those grids with red, blue and yellow squares. Oh, and he was born in that house in Amersfoort.
(Link: haarlemsdagblad, Photo by Elly Waterman, some rights reserved)
Tags: Amersfoort, Piet Mondriaan, Steven Aalders
October 11, 2009
Rotterdam’s Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum has just launched an online art channel called ArtTube, making them the first Dutch museum to do so. ArtTube features current and historic films about art and design. Next year, a part of the museum’s collection will be on ArtTube as well.
The films are subtitled in English. I picked one at random about pottery maker Royal Tichelaar Makkum (Koninklijke Tichelaar Makkum).
(Link: noordhollandsdagblad)
September 29, 2009
Rotterdam artist Florentijn Hofman basically explains that the rubber duck is friendly and makes people happy. We spotted his work in Amsterdam once back in January 2008 and this video shows us what the port of Osaka looks like with a whole bunch of rubber ducks.
(Link: trendbeheer, florentijnhofman)
Tags: ducks, Florentijn Hofman
September 28, 2009
This photo of a Gispen lamp, taken in the cellar of the Hilversum city hall, won the Wiki Loves Art contest in which museums opened their doors to amateur photographers
The jury wrote: “A photo with a great atmosphere, and also a photo that piques one’s curiosity, and furthermore a photo that is very useful for illustrating Wikipedia articles. The perfect match of a good depiction of the object and atmosphere.”
Several more prizes were awarded, do not hesitate to check out the winners at wikilovesart.nl.
Here is a Volkskrant video (Dutch, starts with an ad) of one of the shoots at the Van Gogh Museum.
See also:
September 27, 2009
The artist’s website doesn’t tell if there are any places IRL where you can check out her work, but she’s got plenty of photos on that site.
(Found this trendbeheer.nl.)
Tags: Chantal Spit
August 18, 2009
The Rijksmuseum (State Museum) recently secured a long-term loan of some 80 photos from Surinam and Curaçao, two former Dutch colonies. The photo shown here is apparently the oldest known photo from Surinam, a daguerreotype, portraying a mixed race married couple that was taken in 1846 in Paramaribo, seven years after the advent of photography.
The lot is called ‘De West’ and can be admired as of 19 August. It also includes work from reputed photographers such as Augusta Curiel (1873-1937) and Willem Diepraam (1944).
(Link: wereldjournalisten.nl, Photo: rijksmuseum.nl)
Tags: Curaçao, Rijksmuseum, Suriname
