Which art books, prints and posters are available by and about this artist? Here is a sample of items of interest to a typical collector:
Karel Martens, Dutch, b. 1939
Martens is a towering figure in contemporary Dutch graphic design, renowned for bridging the rigorous functionalism of post-war European modernism with a deeply personal, experimental artistic practice. While inheriting the traditions of Dutch design pioneers like Piet Zwart and Wim Crouwel, Martens introduced a warmer, more tactile, and open-ended approach to the medium. Beyond his extensive public commissions, which include designing Dutch postage stamps, telephone cards, and the architectural journal OASE, his most profound legacy is rooted in his role as an educator. In 1998, he co-founded the highly influential Werkplaats Typografie in Arnhem, fundamentally shaping subsequent generations of designers by emphasizing the conceptual weight and physical sensory experience of printed matter.
Martens’s autonomous artistic practice is defined by his meticulous, highly geometric letterpress monoprints. Operating with radical economy and a deep understanding of physical process, he frequently repurposes found metal objects, discarded car parts, industrial washers, clock gears, and construction pieces, as his printing matrices. He prints these forms onto found materials like vintage paper, old museum archive cards, or newsprint. By painstakingly layering single colors day after day, he builds complex, luminous optical overlays. The resulting compositions balance strict mathematical geometry with the organic, tactile unpredictability of ink, pressure, and paper grain.
For the Bushwick Sur Seine collection, Martens represents the zenith of the art book as an independent, structural object. His extensive ongoing collaboration with Roma Publications, resulting in highly collectible artist books like Printed Matter, Tokyo Papers, and Small Prints, blurs the boundary between graphic design, conceptual art, and printmaking. By manipulating the very mechanics of book production (such as French folds, layered printing on a single uncut sheet, and structural pacing), Martens ensures the physical book is never merely a container for reproduction, but a tactile, immersive work of art in its own right.
In 1996 Martens was awarded the Dr. H.A. Heineken Award. He taught at the Art Academy in Arnhem, Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht (1994-1999), From 1997 he has been a visiting lecturer in the graphic design department at the School of Art, Yale University. In 1997 he started Werkplaats Typografie, a post-graduate graphic design school in Arnhem, where he still teaches.
