Now showing - Design Museum Dedel

The salon is dedicated to the graphic works of Jan Toorop (1858-1928). He was one of the most influential painters from the turn of the century. He designed only few posters and all of them are shown in this room. Toorop went through different phases in the development of his art converting to Catholicism in the process. This is illustrated in his posters.

Delft Salad Oil Poster

His poster for the Delft Salad Oil Company became famous and the Dutch version of art nouveau sometimes still is called “salad-oil style” or “spaghetti style”. Toorop had his indoor posters printed in subdued colours and for outdoors in darker shades. An art critic at the time called them “caviar for the people”.

Pandorra

Special is his poster for the play Pandorra in 1919. It was printed in nine colors, which was very expensive and quite exceptional. Only few copies survive as the poster was never used. The reason lies in a strike by the workmen at the theaters and/or the closure of theaters as a result of the Spanish Flu pandemic. Nobody seems to know for sure. Some even suggested that the poster was banned because of the daring nudity of the design.

Work for Females

In 1898 Toorop made a design for the exhibition on female labour. On this draft is shown Marguérite Helfrich, whom he used as a model.

In 1924 Toorop was too weak physically to draw the design for the Eucharist Congress poster on the stone without help. Gerard Rutten (1902-1982) was an artist and skilled lithographer who created part of the design. As his work is closely related to that of Jan Toorop two of his posters are also shown. Later in life Gerard Rutten became a film director.

The family living room is dedicated to the graphic works of Bart van der Leck (1876-1958). Bart van der Leck started his career in the decorative arts with stained glass windows and illustrations. Starting in earnest as a painter from 1906 onwards during the years 1913-1918 he changed his style gradually but also dramatically from figurative to abstract art. He was hired by the shipping firm Müller & Co in 1914 and this led to the commission of his first poster. His vision of abstract art included the choice in 1916 to only use the primary colours red, yellow and blue in its purest form. In this way he influenced Piet Mondrian and Theo van Doesburg, with whom he founded the art movement De Stijl in 1917. He left the group already in 1918 as he decided to return to semi-abstraction and to keep diagonals, to which especially Mondrian was very much opposed.

Delft Salad Oil Company

The commission in 1919 to design a poster for the Delft Salad Oil Company could have catapulted Van der Leck, as Jan Toorop before him, into the realm of eternal poster fame as his design was in more than one way revolutionary.

The poster was however never printed and the lettering he created was kept from the public. It is not clear if the design was just judged to be to “modern” or that it was also caused by the decision to change the name of the brand from Delftsche Slaolie to Calvé Delft as happened shortly after. Van der Leck was very disappointed.

Exhibition poster

In 1919 he designed a poster for his own exhibition in Utrecht. This clearly shows his style described above. The image represents a horseman on a horse. The red is probably a pedestal, in the blue above we can see the sky.

Batavier-line

A year later he found that Müller & Co, without consulting him, had changed his Batavier poster. He felt that not just as another disappointment but as a clear insult as he had worked for the Kröller-Müller family, and especially art-collector Helene, in, what he thought of, as a close and friendly relationship. Today Bart van der Leck as a poster designer is known for a version of the Batavier-line poster that he did not approve of. This exhibition is a first step to change that view. A publication is to follow.

Design Museum Dedel presents over 200 very rare posters from Switzerland. The oldest is from 1885. It is the first exhibition in a series in which a different country will be the theme. The posters on the bel etage are arranged chronologically, so that the visitor is given an impression based on the advertisements of the time.

Three themes have been highlighted: the fashion posters, political posters and the artistic development around the Avant Garde and the Bauhaus. The Swiss posters are striking because of their quality: they were printed on better paper than elsewhere in Europe and on a larger standard size.

In the chronological section (Salon and Hall), products that Switzerland is known for are advertised: chocolate, watches, travel and the railways. This results in interesting confrontations. Famous designers such as Emil Cardinaux, Charles Loupot, Otto Baumberger and Otto Morach have provided posters for this.

An important aspect are the posters for fashion. A grand advertising battle took place between clothing companies PKZ and Grieder that has resulted in spectacular posters. Fritz Seigner shows a poster in three parts that he made for PKZ. These can be found in the Bedroom on the front right.

The third theme is politics (Middle Room front). Referendums are a typical Swiss phenomenon. Poster campaigns were conducted around the consultations, of which speaking examples can be seen here, including by Burkhard Mangold and Melchior Annen. The poster AGAINST women's suffrage remained anonymous.