In 2017, at the age of 102, Mar passed away. She was known to those close to her as a woman who gave colour to life, literally and figuratively, and for ten years Marijn Bax had photographed her in her house—fascinated less by portraiture than by the fusion of Mar’s movements with walls and furniture, and by the colours and fabrics surrounding her. What began as a study became an intense collaboration and a friendship. Mar’s standing instruction was plain: do something with this when I am no longer here.

The result is not a biography of Mar but a book made from her. Bax assembled MAR as an artist’s book, with Mevis & van Deursen designing its 256 colour pages. The palette is not incidental; Mar’s own wit and vividness set the terms, and the book follows them rather than summarizing them.

Published by Fw:Books, MAR was recognised as a Best of 2018 title by Photobookstore Magazine and as a Best Dutch Book Design 2018. Those citations point to what distinguishes it: a photographer who allowed a long familiarity to shape the editing, and a designer whose restraint lets the material breathe. The softcover volume measures 17 by 23.5 centimetres.

For a serious collector, the interest lies in that doubling of authorship—Bax’s photographs and Mar’s instruction—and in the book’s place among recent photobooks that treat design as an integral part of meaning. It is currently out of print. Collectors drawn to sustained, intimate bodies of work and to collaborations between photographer and subject will find it worth seeking. This is the English edition; a Dutch edition was also issued. That distinction matters when choosing a reading copy, while the photographic project remains the same collaboration between Bax and Mar.