Theo van Doesburg
Paintings, Drawings, Photographs and Architectural Drawings
October 14 – November 08, 1947
Theo Van Doesburg (born Holland, 1883), was the founder of the DE STIJL group the works and viewpoint of which has had a world-wide influence on modern art and architecture generally and especially on the Bauhaus, in Weimer.
Founded in 1916, in Holland, the DE STIJL group and the reviewer of the same name was composed of modern architects; for example Oud, Wils, can T'Hoff and Rietveld; painters;
including Mondrian and van der Leck; writers such as Bonset (a nom de plume of van Doesburg's); and the sculptor Vantongerloo.
The exhibition, retrospective in character, begins with a self-portrait (1906)which is conservative in style and in the browns of the old Dutch tradition. It then shows examples of a blue period (1911-1913), such as Portrait (1911) and Landscape and a period of transition (1914-1916) through which he passed into pure abstract art. The latest painting in the exhibit is an abstraction, Contre Composition Simultanee(1930).
Brought to America from Paris in Maroh, the exhibition was first shown in New York in the Art of This Century Gallery, then in the San Francisco Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum and the Henry Gallery, in Seattle, Washington.
The Installation of the exhibit was arranged by Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe, Head of the Architectural Department of the Illinois Institute of Technology.
This text was taken from the exhibition press release.
 |
