Karel Martens: Re-Printed Matter

Although we had an earlier edition of this book and a few odd items by Karel Martens in our personal collection, we didn’t really fall in love with his work until we stumbled on a little exhibition of his prints in the basement of the Carpenter Center at Harvard. It kick-started our love affair—and we love that this book is now back in print. We hope to always have it in our offerings.

The work of Karel Martens occupies an intriguing place in the present European art-and-design landscape. Martens can be placed in the tradition of Dutch modernism, in the line of figures such as Piet Zwart, H.N. Werkman, and Willem Sandberg. Yet he maintains some distance from the main developments of this time: from both the practices of routinized modernism and of the facile reactions against this. His work is both personal and experimental. At the same time, it is publicly answerable. This fourth edition—presenting almost sixty years of practice—shows us why.