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| 1883 births | |
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Theo van Doesburg ( Utrecht , August 30 , 1883 – Davos , March 7 , 1931 ) was a Dutch artist, practicing in Painting , Writing , Poetry and Architecture . He is best known as the founder and leader of De Stijl . BIOGRAPHY Early life Theo van Doesburg was born as Christiaan Emil Marie Küpper on August 30 1883 in Utrecht as the son of the Photographer Wilhelm Küpper and Henrietta Catherina Margadant . Early in his twenties he started using the name of his stepfather Theodorus Doesburg to sign his early paintings. His first exhibition was in 1908. He supported his works by copying paintings from the Rijksmuseum and writing for magazines. The De Stijl movement It was while reviewing an exposition for one of these magazines, in , Anthony Kok , Vilmos Huszar and J.J.P. Oud they founded the magazine '' De Stijl '' in 1917 . Promoting De Stijl Although 'De Stijl' was made up of many members, Van Doesburg was the 'ambassador' of the movement, promoting it across Europe. He moved to Weimar in 1922, deciding to make an impression on the Bauhaus principal, Walter Gropius , in order to spread the influence of the movement. While Gropius accepted many of the precepts of contemporary art movements he did not feel that Doesburg should become a Bauhaus master. Doesburg then installed himself near to the Bauhaus buildings and started to attract school students interested in the new ideas of Constructivism . Dadaism , and De Stijl . The split with Mondrian The friendship between Van Doesburg and Mondrian remained strong in these years, although their primary way of communication was by letter. In , which was characterized by the diagonal lines and rivaled with Mondrian's Neo-Plasticism . In 1929 the two men became reconciled when they accidentally met in a café in Paris. Architecture, design, and typography Van Doesburg had other activities apart from painting and promoting De Stijl: he made efforts in Architecture , designing houses for artists, together with Georges Vantongerloo and he designed the decoration for the Café Aubette in Strasbourg . Together with El Lissitzky and Kurt Schwitters , Van Doesburg pioneered the efforts to an International of Arts in two congresses held in Düsseldorf and Weimar, in 1922. A geometrically constructed alphabet Van Doesburg designed in 1919 has been revived in digital form as Architype Van Doesburg . This typeface anticipates similar later experimentation by Kurt Schwitters in his typeface Architype Schwitters . Van Doesburg also kept a link with DADA , publishing the magazine ''DADA Holland'' under the False Name of I. K. Bonset (possibly a rewriting of "Ik ben sot", Dutch for "I am mad"). He also published Dada Poetry under the same name in De Stijl. When he wrote prose, he used the pseudonym Aldo Camini . In these works of literature, he heavily opposed Individualism (and thus against the movement of the Tachtigers , Realism , and Psychological thinking. He sought for a collective experience of reality. His conception of intensity had much in common with Paul Van Ostaijen 's conception of "dynamiek". He wanted to strip words of their former meaning, and give them a new meaning and power of expression. By doing this, he tried to ''evoke'' a new reality, instead of describing it. Last years Van Doesburg stayed active in art groups such as Cercle Et Carré , Art Concret and Abstraction-Création , which he founded in 1931 . At the end of February 1931 he was forced to move to 1931 he died of a Heart Attack . After his death Nelly van Doesburg released the last issue of De Stijl as a memorial issue with contributions by old and new members from De Stijl. BIBLIOGRAPHY
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