Best Dutch Book Designs - Beekman Paintings
Every year, The Best Dutch Book Designs celebrates the best products of the graphic industry in the Netherlands: 33 books made with heart and soul. Books set apart by the combination of great design and commissioning with high-quality lithography, printing and bindings. Of the 328 books submitted, Beekman Paintings was awarded one of 33 Best Dutch Book Designs.
This years' jury members are: Edwin van Gelder (designer), Stefano van der Knaap (creative director at Printing Company Zwaan Lenoir), Astrid Vorstermans (founder/director Valiz publishers), Sarah van Binsbergen (art critic) and Thomas Castro (curator Graphic design at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and designer). More info on the Best Dutch Book Designs.
About the book
Dutch painter Tjebbe Beekman's loaded canvases are abstract and expressive at the same time, disorienting the viewer's sense of space. The artist uses paint, sand and plaster which he layers onto the canvas with a brush, palette knife or his fingers, to later be scraped away or built up into relief. While previous works dealt with themes of a dystopian society depicted through fragmented architectonical structures, like abandoned offices or panoramic scenes of stock exchanges, his recent work has become increasingly complex, its visual idiom and colour palette linked to the work of twentieth-century artists such as Henry Moore, Pablo Picasso and Max Beckmann, among others.
Beekman Paintings is the first monograph on Tjebbe Beekman (1972). The book includes 90 of his works. This richly illustrated publication, designed by Irma Boom and with textual contributions by Rudi Fuchs, Hans den Hartog Jager and Anna Tilroe, provides an indispensable overview of the 20-year oeuvre of one of the most important Dutch artists of his generation. In conjunction with: GRIMM Gallery and with support from Mondriaanfonds, Jaap Hartenfonds, Stichting In Opdracht