Geert Paul Hendrikus Schuitema (; 27 February 1897 – 25 October 1973) was a
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
graphic artist. He also designed
furniture and
expositions and worked as
photographer
A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs.
Duties and types of photographers
As in other ...
,
film director,
painter and teacher for publicity design at the
Royal Academy of Art
The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purpo ...
in
The Hague
The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...
.
Industrial design
Schuitema studied at the
Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten in
Rotterdam
Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"Ne ...
. In the 1920s, he began to work on graphic design,
[
]
applying the principles of
De Stijl
''De Stijl'' (; ), Dutch for "The Style", also known as Neoplasticism, was a Dutch art movement founded in 1917 in Leiden. De Stijl consisted of artists and architects. In a more narrow sense, the term ''De Stijl'' is used to refer to a body ...
and
constructivism
Constructivism may refer to:
Art and architecture
* Constructivism (art), an early 20th-century artistic movement that extols art as a practice for social purposes
* Constructivist architecture, an architectural movement in Russia in the 1920s a ...
to commercial advertising. Along with
Gerard Kiljan and his famous colleague
Piet Zwart
Piet Zwart (; 28 May 1885 – 24 September 1977) was a Dutch photographer, typographer, and industrial designer.
Biography
Early life
Piet Zwart was born on May 28, 1885 in Zaandijk. He trained as an architect, and began graphic design proje ...
, he followed ideas pioneered in the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
by
El Lissitzky
Lazar Markovich Lissitzky (russian: link=no, Ла́зарь Ма́ркович Лиси́цкий, ; – 30 December 1941), better known as El Lissitzky (russian: link=no, Эль Лиси́цкий; yi, על ליסיצקי), was a Russian artist ...
and
Rodchenko
Aleksander Mikhailovich Rodchenko (russian: link=no, Алекса́ндр Миха́йлович Ро́дченко; – 3 December 1956) was a Russian and Soviet artist, sculptor, photographer, and graphic designer. He was one of the founders ...
, in
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
by
Henryk Berlewi and in
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
by
Kurt Schwitters
Kurt Hermann Eduard Karl Julius Schwitters (20 June 1887 – 8 January 1948) was a German artist who was born in Hanover, Germany.
Schwitters worked in several genres and media, including dadaism, Constructivism (art), constructivism, surrealism ...
.
[
]
left, ''Chair no. 55'', 1932
During his employment at the ''NV Maatschappij Van Berkel Patent'' scale company in Rotterdam, Schuitema gained recognition for his original designs of stationery and publicity material, often using only the colors
black
Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ...
,
red
Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a secondar ...
and
white
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White o ...
and
bold sans serif
In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif, gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than ser ...
fonts. From 1926 on, he started working with
photomontages, becoming one of the pioneers of this technique in the field of
industrial design.
Schuitema was a member of
Nederlandsche Vereeniging voor Ambachts- en Nijverheidskunst
The Nederlandsche Vereeniging voor Ambachts- en Nijverheidskunst (V.A.N.K.) (Dutch Association for Craft and Industrial Art) was founded in 1904. It was founded by Jacob Pieter van den Bosch, Herman Hana, Klaas van Leeuwen, Theo Molkenboer, and W ...
(V.A.N.K.) the Dutch Association for Craft and Craft Art.
Even though he was a convinced
socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...
and often designed leftist publications directed at industrial workers, Schuitema also worked for major companies, such as
Philips
Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters i ...
.
Post-war filmmaker
During the final years of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, Schuitema, along with
Jan Bouman
Jan Bouman (28 August 1706, in Amsterdam – 6 September 1776, in Berlin) was a Dutch architect, mainly notable for his work as designer and general contractor on the Dutch Quarter in Potsdam by order of Frederick William I of Prussia.
He de ...
,
Lou Lichtveld and
Eduard Verschueren, began planning for the post-war art community in the Netherlands. In 1944, the four publish a "Report on Stimulation, Development and Organization of the Film Industry in the Netherlands" (''Rapport inzake de stimuleering, ontwikkeling en ordening van het Filmwezen in Nederland'').
Following ''
Dolle Dinsdag'' (5 September 1944), he officially joined the
resistance forces, assuming a leadership role in the National Film and Photo Reportage Service. After the end of the war, Schuitema and his three partners founded the Dutch Cooperative for Film Production (''Nederlandse Werkgemeenschap voor Filmproductie'', NWF) in
Haarlem and gave the impulse for the formation of the Dutch Film Makers Guild (''Beroepsvereniging van Nederlandse Cineasten''). In each case, membership was restricted to those artists whose conduct during the
occupation
Occupation commonly refers to:
*Occupation (human activity), or job, one's role in society, often a regular activity performed for payment
*Occupation (protest), political demonstration by holding public or symbolic spaces
*Military occupation, th ...
was irreproachable.
[
]
In 1946, Schuitema presented his
short film
A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...
"Les Ponts de la Meuse" at the
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...
.
Influence
His techniques influenced the
Wild Plakken design collective of the late 20th century.
[
]
References
Further reading
* Dick Maan, ''Paul Schuitema. Visual Organiser (englisch edition)'', 010 Publishers, Rotterdam (2006) ()
External links
* Finding Aid for
Graphic designs of Paul Schuitema, 1920-1965, Getty Research Institute
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schuitema, Paul
1897 births
1973 deaths
Modern artists
Dutch industrial designers
Dutch artists
People from Groningen (city)
Dutch graphic designers
Academic staff of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague
20th-century Dutch photographers
