Bart van der Leck (1876-1958)
Ceramics
About the artist:
The Dutch painter Bart van der Leck was a highly versatile artist. In addition to creating paintings, he was involved in interior design commissions, corporate identity design, typography, stained glass, carpets, and ceramics. He was a key pioneer of modernism and one of the founders of the Dutch aesthetic movement ‘De Stijl’. Around 1916, he introduced an idiom of geometric forms in primary colors into his work. With this radically new way of working, he inspired not only his ‘De Stijl’ colleagues, such as Piet Mondrian and Gerrit Rietveld, but also artists, designers, and architects worldwide to break new ground.
Ceramics:
Van der Leck started experimenting with making decorative ceramics, around 1934. The rough unglazed objects were made at a local pottery called Hobbel and at potter Brouwer from Leiderdorp. After he carefully mixed the colored glazes in his studio, Van der Leck painted each composition and decor himself and then fired them in one of his own pottery kilns.
He sometimes made several versions of a design, but he experimented/varied with lines and areas of color in such a way, that there are no exactly the same tiles, plates or vases. They are unique works of art of which only the approved copies were provided with his signature B vd L.
We have obtained two historic photographs from the family archive that were made by the Dutch photographer Nico Jesse in commission of Van der Leck in the 1950s. The photo’s are showing a table and sideboard, in Van der Leck’s country-house/studio, displaying a collection of ceramics and the artist sitting at the table in the middle of the collection. The displayed tiles closely resemble the examples we are now presenting in our gallery, together with some of the original design drawings. We feel privileged the heirs of Van der Leck enables us to offer you some pieces today that are so closely related to this historic images.
Decorative tile, glazed terracotta with abstract decoration: Young goat, 1940s
12.3 x 12.3 cm.
Signed: B vd L
Provenance: Heirs of the artist
Price on request
Decorative tile, glazed terracotta with abstract decor: Mail goat, 1940s
12.5 x 12.5 cm.
Signed: B vd L
Provenance: Heirs of the artist
Price on request
Decorative tile, glazed terracotta with abstract decor: Fish, 1936
12 x 12.5 cm.
Signed: B vd L
Provenance: Heirs of the artist
Price on request
Decorative tile, glazed terracotta with abstract decor: Goat lamb, 1940s
12.5 x 12.5 cm.
Signed: B vd L
Provenance: Heirs of the artist
Price on request
Decorative tiles, glazed terracotta with abstract decors: Goat, Goat lamb, Bee-house and Fish, second half of the 1930’s – 1940s
12.5 x 12.5 cm.
Signed: B vd L
Provenance: heirs of Henk de Leeuw (director of the avant-garde department store Metz&Co) and the heirs of the artist.
Price on request
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