Ed van der Elsken - Karel Appel with Love Song (+ selfie Van der Elsken), gelatin silver print - Sold

Vintage photo of Karel Appel during the launch of the book “Love Song” (1963). Vintage gelatin silver print on photo paper. In very good condition.

I was able to find some photos of the same occasion on the internet (photos 3, 4 and 5). The nice thing about the photo offered here is that it is also a selfie of Ed van der Elsken (check photo). Probably very rare, maybe even unique (read also story below) .

Dimensions: 24cm x 18cm

This item is preferably picked up, but it can be well packaged and shipped by registered mail at the buyer's expense.

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Bigger than a man": there is one work in Hugo Claus' immense legacy that even the most passionate collector will never be able to capture: Love Song. This mythical book would become the largest book in the world, but was never published, although a life-size dummy was presented in New York and Amsterdam and has already been included in the Dutch edition of the Guinness Book of Records.

The project was designed by Andreas Landshoff for Abrams New York and would result in an edition of up to twelve copies, with poems by Hugo Claus and paintings by Karel Appel. With a starting price of $ 5,225 (soon increased to ƒ 18,000) and with the unusual dimensions of 210 cm. high and 80 cm. widely the first announcement was made: "the conception reflects the bold and unorthodox methods of the recent art world, in the material, the content, and in the format [...]. The material is new for a book. It has not been created of paper and cloth, but of heavy plastic plates and glass according to the method of "stained glass windows". [...] the owner can take the book apart and put it back together in any order of "pages" he wishes. The book can also be turned into a large screen or a folding screen." Karel Appel characterized his contribution as follows: "a scream in the night", "a tiger behind bars" and "new apparitions that stalk the earth" and Hugo Claus is introduced as "the 'far-out' poet and playwright [. ..], the most important Dutch surrealist author". Appel "delivers the fierce, muscular, primordial designs that have made him a favorite of avant-garde collectors and museums everywhere. Hugo Claus's poems are oblique, highly provocative word pictures that excellently complement Appel's designs, in spirit and intention". But despite this, no copies were ordered and nothing remained but the dummy and a number of photos by Ed van der Elsken.