MODERN DUTCH POSTERS May 15-December 31, 1996 Overview A dazzling use of color and abstract styling characterized Modern Dutch Posters, an installation drawn from the Wolfsonian's impressive collection of Dutch works of art from the years 1885 to 1945. The extensive collection of books, posters, and objects, is the largest outside the Netherlands. Convinced that one way to improve society was to improve the goods people lived with, the Dutch government became committed to design reform in the 1920s. Educators and manufacturers agreed, believing that better quality products would be more competitive in the burgeoning international marketplace. The Dutch government proceeded to address fundamental questions: How would design standards be raised in the Netherlands? How should teachers instruct students to create decorative patterns and motifs? The Committee to Promote Artistic and Effective Art Education at Technical Day and Evening Schools and Related Institutions in the Netherlands, a state-subsidized organization formed by architects, designers, and art teachers, sponsored a design competition in 1921, with the goal of improving art and drawing lessons at technical schools. One of the winning entries, the Series for Painters (Serie v.d. schilder) designed by Jan Gouwetor, was exhibited here. Designed as teaching aids for students aged 12 to 16 who were learning to paint decorative treatments for houses, the posters are characterized by the use of rich, saturated colors and bold geometric forms. Another group of award-winning posters were The New Wall Posters (Nieuwe Wandplanten), designed by Wiebe Cornel and K.A. Smits, and published in 1926. Wiebe Cornel, an art teacher at the technical day school in Utrecht, published the teaching guide, Decorative Techniques, A Manual for Technical Day and Evening Schools (1925) that demonstrated the design philosophy behind many of these posters. According to the text, decorations and motifs should be inspired by nature - flowers, animals, or seashells. In the art lessons, student would learn to translate these natural forms into abstract, geometric patterns. This teaching method of stylizing natural forms was not new. As early as the 1850s in England, design reformers advocated the direct study of nature and rejected as useless the long tradition of copying the "antique." Nature was not to be copied exactly, however, but had to be "conventionalized," because, as one leading English reformer declared, "Decorative art is degraded when it passes into a direct imitation of nature." Design assumed a moral imperative. For example, the teachers believed that naturalistic or three-dimensional designs for flat surfaces were especially dishonest because painted walls (or wallpapers or textiles) are, by nature, two-dimensional and should be rendered that way. Back to Past Exhibitions Main