7 Bart van der Leck

Bibliography

This list is by no means complete. Most books and articles are in Dutch. Some may still be available, most are not.

"Bart van der Leck", ed. Toos van Kooten, Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo, 1994 (in Dutch)

This work is a catalogue of a Bart van der Leck exposition at the Kröller-Müller museum in 1994. It contains pictures of a significant portion of Van der Lecks work, as well as all texts Van der Leck has published and some very interesting articles about Van der Leck. The book can be purchased at the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, NL.

'Vriendschap op afstand', correspondence between Bart van der Leck and H.P. Bremmer, ed. Cees Hilhorst, edtion Thoth, Bussum, NL (in Dutch).

Cees Hilhorst assembled the correspondence between H.P. Bremmer and Van der Leck, i.e. all letters that have remained.

"De beginjaren van de stijl, 1917-1920", Carel Blotkamp et al., 1984, edtion Reflex.

This book contains chapters about Mondriaan, Van Doesburg, Van der Leck, Huszar, Oud, Wils, Vantongerloo, Van't Hoff and Rietveld, the main contributors to the magazine De Stijl. It makes clear where Van der Leck stood relative to the other De Stijl artists.

"Het Vlas", a tale by H.C. Andersen, translated by Marie Nuland-van der Meer de Walcheren, drawings, text design and colors by Bart van der Leck, 1941, facsimile edition in 1996, VH Cralijngen Foundation, Rotterdam, limited edtion of 550 copies.

A very remarkable work. In a series of translations of fairy tales, Van der Leck was preceded by Charley Toorop and Dirk Nuland as illustrators. Rather than just provide drawings, Van der Leck opted for creating the text as well. He drew the whole ten pages manually in a specilally designed font, with small drawings between the lines in his particular style. The facsimile reprinted edtion is available at the Kröller-Müller museum (in limited quantities because of the limited number of copies that has been printed).

home

Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller

The estate De Hoge Veluwe

About Bart van der Leck

Painting the fence (in Dutch)










 

The Cat (1914)






Composition 1918-1920. This is one of Van der Lecks least figurative paintings. Before this one, he made work like the Mine triptiek, "Uitgaan van de fabriek", and very soon after he made "the horseman", which some claim to be his rejection of the Stijl manifesto (which he didn't sign). Mondriaan went his way going abstract, Van der Leck returned to visibly figurative painting.
But even this painting, abstract as it may seem, is based on a real world still. As Van der Leck was used to do, he reduced a still time and again until nothing was left but primary colors in simple geometric shapes. I personally find this painting his purest, his best.