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.