A. Glavimans

The catalogue credit “A. Glavimans” can be identified with André Glavimans (1912–1984). A Google Books archival record names “André Glavimans (1912–1984)” as the contributor to a 1941 group of letters, while bibliographic records connect both the initialled and full forms of the name to the same field of art writing and publishing.

From periodical criticism to artist books

The Digital Library for Dutch Literature (DBNL) indexes Glavimans’s contributions to Elseviers Geïllustreerd Maandschrift: a jointly credited “Kroniek” in 1937, a book-review section in 1938, another chronicle in 1939, and the 1940 essay “A.C. Willink: Het realisme als middel.” The record shows sustained work in Dutch periodical criticism immediately before and during the opening years of the Second World War.

DBNL also records Glavimans as editor of the 1946 publication of Johannes Bosboom’s autobiographical text, Een en ander betrekkelijk mijne loopbaan als schilder. His work on Johan Hendrik van Mastenbroek similarly combined an artist’s recollections with critical commentary and reproductions. A Sotheby’s catalogue entry cites the 1946 volume J.H. van Mastenbroek vertelt zijn herinneringen ter gelegenheid van zijn zeventigsten verjaardag, “aangevuld met een beschouwing over zijn werk door A. Glavimans,” with 153 reproductions. That record gives the author’s first name as André.

Glavimans also wrote about the draughtsman and illustrator Eppo Doeve. A bookseller’s author bibliography lists Doeve. Zestig reproducties van zijn werk as a 1949 publication. Jop Euwijk’s Erasmus University thesis, Politieke spotprenten van een magiër, refers to a Doeve monograph by the journalist André Glavimans from 1947. The differing dates may reflect editions or bibliographic description, so they should not be collapsed into a single unqualified date.

Een halve eeuw “Berkel”

In 1948 Glavimans edited Een halve eeuw “Berkel”, a commemorative volume for the fiftieth anniversary of Maatschappij Van Berkel’s Patent N.V. The Dutch public-library catalogue describes it as a Dutch-language company history published in Rotterdam by Van Waesberge, Hoogewerff & Richards. It records 102 pages, photographs by K. Molkenboer and others, and binding design and drawings by H.W. Tap.

A Zwiggelaar Auctions record gives a fuller production credit: the book was edited by A. Glavimans, with photographs by K. Molkenboer, G.A. de Mol and others, and a binding designed by H.W. Tap. These credits distinguish Glavimans’s editorial role from the photography and graphic design. He should therefore not be catalogued as the photographer of the industrial images.

The book extends a practice already visible in the artist publications: selecting and organizing text and reproductions into an illustrated historical account. Here, however, the subject was a manufacturer of weighing and slicing equipment rather than an individual artist. The credited division of labour also makes the volume a collaborative production, with separate editorial, photographic and design contributions.

A critic in the world of printed art

The Rijksmuseum holds an Ex libris van A. Glavimans, a bookplate by Tinus van Doorn catalogued as dating from 1936. The museum identifies A. Glavimans as its subject. Although the object does not by itself establish a biography, it is a concrete trace of Glavimans’s association with artists and printed matter just before his earliest DBNL-indexed periodical contributions.

The surviving records do not amount to a full biography, but together they document a coherent body of work: periodical criticism, editing of artists’ recollections, illustrated publications on Van Mastenbroek and Doeve, and the editorship of the Berkel anniversary book. This context places Een halve eeuw “Berkel” within André Glavimans’s broader activity as a writer and editor rather than treating “A. Glavimans” as an otherwise unidentified creator.