Henry Van de Velde (1863 – 1957) was a Belgian architect, industrial designer, painter and art critic. He was professionally active in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands.
He worked with Samuel Bing, the founder of the first gallery of Art Nouveau in Paris. Van de Velde spent the most critical part of his career in Germany and became a significant figure in the German Jugendstil. He had a decisive influence on German architecture and design at the beginning of the 20th century.
Education
Between 1881 – 1884 he studied painting, at Académie des Beaux-Arts, Antwerp and between 1884 – 1885 in Paris under Carolus Duran.
Biography
The Secessionists and French Art Nouveau influenced him. Art, in his opinion, should respond to the organic form.
He gave up painting in 1892 to pursue a career in design. His home in Brussels Bloemenwerf, where he combined furniture, rugs, and wall coverings to create a unified whole, earned him international attention. Even though his efficient and stunningly simple designs were admired throughout Europe, he reached the pinnacle of his career in Germany, where he opened a store in Berlin. He created furniture, porcelain, silver, jewellery, and textiles while he was there. Van de Velde, a founder member of the Deutscher Werkbund, eventually quit his position. He mentioned the deterioration of quality due to a greater reliance on the machine over the artist as the reason.
He founded the Sächsische Kunstgewerbeschule (Grand Ducal Saxon School of Arts and Crafts) in 1906.
Architecture
He was strongly influenced by the theories of Ruskin and Morris, began to concentrate on architecture and the design of everyday objects. In 1894, he designed his first house, the Villa Bloemenwerf in Uccle, near Brussels. His powerful and organically curved designs, strongly abstracted from the floral style of his compatriot Victor Horta, created a completely new style. He designed the entire interior furnishings for his Bloemenwerf House.
Selected Works
Bloemenwerf Chair
The Bloemenwerf Chair originally designed for the dining room of the house is a ground-breaking chair design to be created in the nineteenth century. The design of this chair comes from when van de Velde showed the public his “new style” for the first time at Bloemenwerf, the house he designed and built for himself in the Brussels suburb of Uccles in 1895. He also designed the interiors and furniture, which were partly based on the Red House by William Morris. Van de Velde gave everything in the house, from the doorknobs to the wallpaper, the same patterns of embellishments and flowing lines. He did this to show the idea of Gesamtkunstwerk, which means “total work of art.”
Interior Design & Architectural Projects
- 1895–96: “Bloemenwerf”, Van de Velde’s first private residence, in Uccle, Belgium
- 1895: Interior decoration of Siegfried Bing’s art Gallery “Maison de l’art nouveau” in Paris, France
- 1898 : Monument Frédéric de Merode, Brussels, Belgium
- 1900–02: Interior of the Folkwang Museum in Hagen, Germany
- 1902–03, 1911 (extension): “Villa Esche” in Chemnitz, Germany
- 1903: Extension and interior decoration of the Nietzsche Archive in Weimar, Germany
- 1906–07: Clubhouse of the “Chemnitzer Lawn-Tennis-Club” in Chemnitz (demolished)
- 1907–08: “Hohenhof”, Mansion for Karl Ernst Osthaus in Hagen, Germany
- 1907–08: “Haus Hohe Pappeln”, Van de Velde’s private residence in Weimar, Germany
- 1909–11: “Ernst-Abbe-Denkmal”, Memorial for Ernst Abbe in Jena (in collaboration with the sculptors Max Klinger and Constantin Meunier)
- 1912–13: Palace for Graf Dürckheim in Weimar, Germany
- 1913–14: “Werkbund-Theater”, Theatre at the Deutsche Werkbund exhibition in Cologne, Germany
- 1913–14: “Villa Schulenburg” in Gera, Germany
- 1913–14: Wohnhaus für den Fabrikanten Dr. Theo Koerner in Chemnitz, Germany
- 1927–28: “La Nouvelle Maison”, Van de Velde’s private residence in Tervuren, Belgium
- 1929 : “Wolfers House” in Ixelles (Brussels), Belgium
- 1929–31: Home for the elderly of the ‘Minna und James Heinemann-Stiftung’ in Hannover, Germany
- 1933–35: Polyclinic and “Villa Landing” for Dr. Adriaan Martens in “Astene” near Ghent, Belgium
- 1933–38: Library of Ghent University with “Boekentoren” in Ghent, Belgium
- 1936–42: “Technische School”, School building in Leuven, Belgium
- 1937: Belgian Pavilion at the 1937 Paris Exposition
- 1937: “Station Blankenberge”, Train station in Blankenberge
- 1939: Belgian Building for the 1939 New York World’s Fair
Sources
Berg, T., & Bröhan Torsten. (2001). Design classics 1880-1930. Taschen.
Byars, M., & Riley, T. (2004). The design encyclopedia. Laurence King Publishing.
Miller, J. (2009). 20th-century design: The definitive illustrated sourcebook. Miller’s.
Wikipedia contributors. (2021, July 26). Henry van de Velde. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 22:31, August 2, 2021, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Henry_van_de_Velde&oldid=1035542923
More on Art Nouveau
-
Charles Plumet (1861 – 1928) French Architect Designer
In the year 1861, Charles Plumet was born. As an architect, he built structures in the mediaeval and early French Renaissance styles. He worked on interiors and furniture designs in Art Nouveau styles with Tony Selmersheim (1871–1971). Between 1896 and 1901, Charles Plumet joined l’Art dans Tout (Art in Everything), an association of architects, painters,…
-
Imperishable Beauty: Art Nouveau Jewelry (hardcover)
Imperishable Beauty: Art Nouveau Jewelry. “A new, imperishable beauty,” was how the artist and architect Henry van de Velde described it. European Art Nouveau jewelry of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries embraced a new aesthetic characterized by sensuous forms, dramatic imagery and vivid symbolism. Read More →
-
Clément Mère (1861 – 1940) French designer and furniture maker
Clément Mère was born in Bayonne and active in Paris. He was a French painter, table-builder, artist and furniture builder. He studied painting with Jean-Léon Gérôme at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.Read More →
-
Jugendstil: An Exploration of an Artistic Style
Jugendstil, an artistic style that originated around the mid-1890s in Germany and persisted throughout the first decade of the 20th century. READ MORRead More →
-
Art Nouveau Style – antidote to mass production and consumerism
Art Nouveau – Everything Old is New Again It has been said about fashion today that “everything old is newRead More →
-
Quezal an American glassware company
Quezel was a Brooklyn, New York-based glassware manufacturer. It produced a range of decorative and useful items. READ MORERead More →
-
Art Nouveau: The French Aesthetic (hardcover)
This book’s stature is rare. It took five years to compile 624 pages and 740 pictures about Art Nouveau in France. Arwas examines the movement’s development in Nancy and Paris using never-before-published pictures. The comprehensive, witty narrative extends over architecture, haute couture, and the role of women in Art Nouveau with a look at Sarah…
-
Eugenio Quarti (1867 – 1931) Italian furniture designer
Eugenio Quarto (1867 – 1931) was an Italian furniture designer who was born near Bergamo. He was professionally based in Milan.Read More →
-
Henry Van de Velde (1863 – 1957) Belgian artist, architect, interior designer
Henry van de Velde was a Belgian architect, industrial designer, painter and art critic. He worked in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands.Read More →
-
Henri Rapin (1873 – 1939) French artist and decorator
Rapin worked as a painter, illustrator, furniture designer, and decorator. From 1903, his furniture was generally simple. From 1910, he began to produce more elaborate designs using exotic materials and carved wood panels by Eve Le Bourgeois and Charles Hairon. These designs were in response to the challenge from the designers of the Münchner Vereeingite…
-
École de Nancy – Art Nouveau artisans and designers
Between 1890 and 1914, the École de Nancy, or Nancy School, was a group of Art Nouveau artisans and designers based in Nancy, France. The furniture designer Louis Majorelle, the cabinet maker and glass artist Jacques Grüber, the glass and furniture designer Émile Gallé, and the Daum crystal factory were important contributors.Read More →
-
Alphonse Mucha (1860 – 1939) – Moravian decorator and painter
Alphonse Mucha (1860 – 1939) was a Moravian decorator, painter, and graphic artist. In the 1890s and early 1900s, Mucha is well known for his Art Nouveau posters, particularly those of Sarah Bernhardt. Mucha first designed stage sets in Vienna; moved to Munich, in 1885 and Paris in 1887.Read More →
-
Louis Majorelle (1859 – 1926) French Designer and cabinetmaker
Majorelle took over the family cabinetmaking and ceramics business in Nancy in 1879. In the late 1880s, he began designing Modern furniture. Working in the Art Nouveau style, Majorelle was the most dynamic practitioner of the School of Nancy. By mechanising his factory, he produced significant quantities of highly decorated commercial furniture and more elaborate…
-
The Women and Cats of Art Nouveau Artists (Kindle)
By Melanie Paquette-widmann A collection of prints from Art Nouveau artists with women and cats as the subjects of theseRead More →
-
The Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris
The Musée des Arts Décoratifs (Museum of Decorative Arts) is a museum dedicated to the exhibition and conservation of decorative arts. Located at 107 Rue de Rivoli in the city’s 1st arrondissement, the museum occupies the northwest wing of the Palais du Louvre, known as the Pavillon de Marsan (Marsan Pavilion). With more than one…
-
Explore 5 popular topics on Google Arts and Culture
The following are 5 popular topics that are published on Google and Arts and Culture. It is one of my favourite parts of the Google universe.Read More →
-
Manuel Orazi and notable art nouveau posters
Manuel Orazi was a Spanish illustrator, a lithographer who contributed notable Art Nouveau posters of the last quarter of the nineteenth century. He designed the 1884 Théodora poster for Sarah Bernhardt with Gorguet. Others of his posters were for Peugeot bicycles, the opera Aben Hamet and, in the form of an old torn manuscript, for…
-
10 pieces of Jewellery in the Art Nouveau Style
Art Nouveau was an international style of design and architecture. Idiosyncratic and romantic the Art Nouveau style derived from the vestiges of academic classicism of the École des Beauz-Arts, Paris and the study of plant forms. Between 1880 and 1910, the Art Nouveau movement was influential throughout Europe and to a lesser degree in the…
You may also be interested in
Bloemenwerf Side Chair (1895) designed by Henry de Velde
Design Classic – Influential and important design Henry Van de Velde designed the Bloemenwerf Side Chair (1895-1898). Bloemenwerf, Henry Van de Velde’s property outside Brussels, is the inspiration for this chair. Van de Velde planned and built the house and the interior-from the furniture to the wallpaper-resulting in a holistic design that exemplified the concept of a Gesamtkunstwerk “total work of art”.
Henry Cole (1808 – 1882) British design education leader
Organiser – Great Exhibition of 1851 Henry Cole was a significant force in 19th-century British design education, emphasising its importance to industry. He was also instrumental in the organisation of the Great Exhibition of 1851 and the founding of the Journal of Design.
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.