César Domela (15 January 1900 – 30 December 1992) was a Dutch

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

photographer A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who uses a camera to make photographs. Duties and types of photograp ...

, and

typographer Typography is the art and technique of Typesetting, arranging type to make written language legibility, legible, readability, readable and beauty, appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, Point (typogra ...

, and a key member of the

De Stijl De Stijl (, ; 'The Style') was a Dutch art movement founded in 1917 by a group of artists and architects based in Leiden (Theo van Doesburg, Jacobus Oud, J.J.P. Oud), Voorburg (Vilmos Huszár, Jan Wils) and Laren, North Holland, Laren (Piet Mo ...

movement.

Life

He was born César Domela Nieuwenhuis in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

. His father, Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis, was a former

Lutheran Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched ...

pastor and influential anarcho-socialist member of the Dutch parliament. A self-taught artist, he lived from 1919 to 1923 in

Ascona 300px, Ascona Ascona ( ) is a municipality in the district of Locarno in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland. It is located on the shore of Lake Maggiore. The town is a popular tourist destination and holds the yearly Ascona Jazz Festival. ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

, developing his constructivist style, influenced heavily by

cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement which began in Paris. It revolutionized painting and the visual arts, and sparked artistic innovations in music, ballet, literature, and architecture. Cubist subjects are analyzed, broke ...

. Lacking a formal, artistic background, Domela's early art consisted of painted landscapes and still life where figures were reduced to geometric forms. He relocated to

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

in 1923, where he became friendly with members of the influential November Group. That same year, he painted his first painting without a subject, a composition of vertical and horizontal lines and planes. His first solo exhibition was held in 1924, at the Galeria d'Audretsch. In 1925, he became the youngest member of

, working closely with the famed

Theo van Doesburg Theo van Doesburg (; born Christian Emil Marie Küpper; 30 August 1883 – 7 March 1931) was a Dutch painter, writer, poet and architect. He is best known as the founder and leader of De Stijl. He married three times. Personal life Theo van Do ...

and

Piet Mondrian Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan (; 7 March 1872 – 1 February 1944), known after 1911 as Piet Mondrian (, , ), was a Dutch Painting, painter and Theory of art, art theoretician who is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. He w ...

. His work in this period often straddled several mediums. He concentrated on three-dimensional

relief Relief is a sculpture, sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term ''wikt:relief, relief'' is from the Latin verb , to raise (). To create a sculpture in relief is to give ...

s, often incorporating pieces of

Plexiglas Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) is a synthetic polymer derived from methyl methacrylate. It is a transparent thermoplastic, used as an engineering plastic. PMMA is also known as acrylic, acrylic glass, as well as by the trade names and bra ...

and

metal A metal () is a material that, when polished or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electrical resistivity and conductivity, electricity and thermal conductivity, heat relatively well. These properties are all associated wit ...

as well as

photomontage Photomontage is the process and the result of making a composite photograph by cutting, gluing, rearranging and overlapping two or more photographs into a new image. Sometimes the resulting composite image is photographed so that the final imag ...

s and cutouts from advertisements. Though he opened a silkscreen process studio for printmaking in 1934, relief was still his favorite medium and he developed the medium to a high art form. In 1936, he took part in an exhibition of Cubism and Abstract Art in the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. Domela also experimented with

typography Typography is the art and technique of Typesetting, arranging type to make written language legibility, legible, readability, readable and beauty, appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, Point (typogra ...

and was commissioned to produce advertisements in Germany. When

Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

came into power in 1933, Domela fled

and resettled in Paris, where he remained until his death in 1992. He was also forced to destroy a large part of his library, as it contained numerous books written by 'anarchists', many of which he had designed the books for. In 1947 director

Alain Resnais Alain Resnais (; 3 June 19221 March 2014) was a French film director and screenwriter whose career extended over more than six decades. After training as a film editor in the mid-1940s, he went on to direct short films including '' Night and Fog ...

produced a film about César Domela, ''Visite à César Doméla'' ( fr). After Domela died, his vast archive of personal belongings and works was willed to the

Netherlands Institute for Art History The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD (Dutch: ), previously Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center in the world. The center specializes in document ...

. In 2009, his two daughters Anne Dutter Domela and Lie Tugaye Domela donated a selection of nine of their father's works to the

Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art The Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg (MAMCS, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art) is an art museum in Strasbourg, France, which was founded in 1973 and opened in its own building in November 1998. One of the largest of its k ...

, and a room inside the museum is now dedicated to the painter.''Une salle pour César Domela''
Les Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace, 25 June 2009

Notes and references

External links

''Composition''
César Domela and Lao Tseu through the composition
Museo Cantonale d'Arte, Lugano: César Domela
* https://www.gemeentemuseum.nl/en/exhibitions/cesar-domela * https://www.moma.org/artists/1578 * https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/netherlands/articles/de-stijl-the-most-important-art-movement-you-have-not-heard-of/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Domela, Cesar 1900 births 1992 deaths 20th-century Dutch painters Dutch male painters 20th-century Dutch sculptors Painters from Amsterdam De Stijl Dutch male sculptors 20th-century Dutch photographers 20th-century Dutch male artists