Rhythmic Movement in Flat Space

the Print Room bought a letter and a drawing by the founder and key figure of De Stijl magazine (1917-31), Theo van Doesburg (1883-1931). 1 The letter is dated 10 November 1917.The separate drawing, done in 1916, was originally enclosed with it (fig.1).The surprising and early acquisition took place after the De Stijl retrospective in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1951, which helped launch a reassessment of this art movement.Even so, this was probably not the real reason why the director Jon van Regteren Altena and the curator Karel Boon, both from the Rijksprentenkabinet -now called the Print Room -decided to buy it.They actually persisted with this acquisition undaunted by Rijksprentenkabinet policy.Since it was established at the end of the nineteenth century, its curators had always purchased contemporary prints and drawings, although restrictions had been put in place around the Second World War.Nevertheless, the acquisition of these items in 1955 is remarkable because at that time there was actually no budget to buy letters or artists' manuscripts.The letter was probably bought despite this because, in conjunction with the drawing and the sketches in the letter, it was a unique example of a written and drawn explanation of the meaning of the artist's work by the artist himself.

Abstract licence: CC BY

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