Now showing - Design Museum Dedel

In the anti-war exhibition of the museum Dedel, you come across the artworks made at the beginning of the twentieth century that look like prophecies of upcoming disasters. And indeed end-of-the-world theories are part of our cultural background and can be found in any folklore and ancient traditions. The fear of an uncertain and unknown future drives the human mind to explain the unexplainable. As the human body goes through the cycle of life, the universe must dissolve and reemerge as well. The Mayan version of the world-end records a vast cosmic cycle that represents a world period of some thirty-four thousand years—twelve and a half million days—and these are recorded again and again. However, with the development of weapons of mass destruction mankind doesn’t need to wait for the end of the cosmic cycle anymore. During the twentieth century, the idea of the possible end of humankind was ever present in the public space all the way through the Cold War till 1991. Great deal of fear, tension, and anger were reflected in art pieces of the era. Our museum’s anti-war poster exhibition combines works of many politically involved artists, designers, and illustrators. They strived to appeal to the kind human hearts, to the best human qualities in an attempt to stop bloodshed from happening.

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.

Design Museum Dedel presents very rare posters from Switzerland. Two themes have been highlighted: the fashion posters and political posters. 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.

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 secondtheme 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.

In the library is a permanent exhibition of Art Nouveau posters.

Art Nouveau is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. It was often inspired by natural forms such as the sinuous curves of plants and flowers. Other characteristics of Art Nouveau were a sense of dynamism and movement, often given by asymmetry or whiplash lines, and the use of modern materials, particularly iron, glass, ceramics and later concrete, to create unusual forms and larger open spaces. It was popular between 1890 and 1910 during the Belle Époque period, and was a reaction against the academicism, eclecticism and historicism of 19th century architecture and decorative art.

One major objective of Art Nouveau was to break down the traditional distinction between fine arts (especially painting and sculpture) and applied arts. It was most widely used in interior design, graphic arts, furniture, glass art, textiles, ceramics, jewellery and metal work. The style responded to leading 19-century theoreticians, such as French architect Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (1814–1879) and British art critic John Ruskin (1819–1900). In Britain, it was influenced by William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement. German architects and designers sought a spiritually uplifting Gesamtkunstwerk ('total work of art') that would unify the architecture, furnishings, and art in the interior in a common style, to uplift and inspire the residents.