Galerie Dennis Cooper presents … Piet Zwart

 

‘Personally, I admire the rebels, the forward thinkers, the people despised by society for being “different.” Zwart was, according to several sources, “not an easy man.” He was known for his “indiscretion” and many considered him “self-centered.” When have people like him ever been understood by the mediocre?

‘Others recall that he was driven to excel. He worked late into the night, usually until three in the morning, set high standards for himself that others thought were unattainable by any person. He was concerned about promoting himself and paranoid about others having the wrong impression of him. As he was named The Most Influential Designer of the Twentieth Century by the Association of Dutch Designers (although some articles on Zwart list it as the Professional Organization of Dutch Designers) in 2000, he obviously succeeded in making his mark, despite the rumors and innuendos from those around him.

‘Many, it seems in my research probably felt more out of jealousy from Zwart’s ideals of perfection and his insistence on being involved in articles and books about him. The Oxford Journal writes, ‘Yvonne Brentjens’s new monograph… charts his struggle to arrive at an objective, scientific and technically perfect design, hence the word Vormingenieur (engineer of form).’

‘Piet Zwart was born on May 28th, 1885 in Zaandijk, North Holland (died in September 27th, 1977 at the age of 92). From 1902 until 1907 he attended the School of Applied Arts in Amsterdam where it is said there was little division between several disciplines as drawing, painting, architecture and applied arts. Zwart and fellow students developed by themselves with little interference from above, as teachers weren’t always present. “A smashing school with no idea of a program,” as Zwart recalls.

‘It was this lack of formal classroom training that led him to approach his design, especially typography in a fresh and untraditional way. While the purely horizontal grid design of straightforward type and images was the norm, leading to the Swiss School of Design in the 1940s and 1950s (also read the Noupe article on Swiss School designer, Josef Müller-Brockmann), Zwart felt his designing from his gut.

‘As with most geniuses, there was a self-initiated method that broke the very same rules he had never learned, or, as I suspect, he cared nothing for and wanted to break. He also experimented in the use of photography incorporated into his designs, leading to photomontages. Still, with all the rule breaking and experimentation, Zwart was concerned with readability, feeling that typography should be clear and functional. If any influence must be assigned, he used the basic principles of constructivism and “De Stijl” in his commercial work.

‘One must put Zwart’s work into context of the time and design influences. His use of type and montage was incredibly ahead of his time. Even today, such work is inspiring, fresh and unique. His lack of training shows a gift and inner creativity that is individual and comes from deep within. One has to wonder if Zwart’s “difficult” personality, as nay-sayers put it, is a reaction to the misplaced and vociferous opinions of other contemporaries who couldn’t fathom Zwart’s designs.

‘While time has proved him to be a truly great creative, it must have been hard for him to put up with life as the target of harsh critiques from charlatans and mediocre talents. It’s a great lesson for designers to understand that one’s own creative vision is not fodder for other creatives to comment upon. In the long run, history will be the judge of great creativity and not the opinions of others in the field.

‘Zwart had been fired from the Rotterdam Academy of Fine Arts in 1933, after he had been quite explicit about the redevelopment of art education. Some say he was teaching communist ideals to his students and some say his progressive ideas had been closely linked to the innovative methods and objectives of the Bauhaus School in Dessau where he was asked to host a number of lessons in 1929.

‘As with many who lived in the dark days of the Second World War, Zwart, along with 800 other prominent citizens were arrested and held by German soldiers. After the war, when he was released from captivity, he mainly focused on industrial design. One can only imagine what years of captivity did to him. He never spoke of those years. It is amazing he went back to creative work, albeit in another field.

‘One cannot have much introspection into a person’s private pain. The old saying is that an artist must suffer for their art. Zwart certainly suffered although it’s hard to tell how much of it was self-imposed. It is, however, his legacy of creativity that lives on and has lessons for the creatives of today. His drive and dedication to his vision is a great lesson. His work, if one thinks of the time and culture of his heyday, was such a departure – almost futuristic but he still managed to convince people that his vision was the best way to communicate the message.’ — Speider Schneider

 

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Further

Piet Zwart @ Wikipedia
Piet Zwart – Index Grafik
PIET ZWART INSTITUTE
Piet Zwart – iconofgraphics.com
Piet Zwart: The Rebellious Type
Piet Zwart Timeline
PIET ZWART AND HIS INFLUENCE ON DESIGN

 

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Extras

Everything Must Change – Piet Zwart (2012) – Trailer

Zwart

Piet Zwart Institute Master Lens-Based / Master Experimental Publishing

 

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Kitchen

‘Piet Zwart (1885-1977) owes his reputation as much for his design for the Bruynzeel kitchen in 1938 as for his progressive graphic designs for companies like PTT and cable manufacturer Nederlandsche Kabelfabriek. Piet Zwart preferred to call himself a form engineer or form technician rather than a designer. He believed in functionality, standardisation and machine production, and profiled himself as one of the first industrial designers in the Netherlands. In his eyes, a design must take account both of ergonomics and user-friendliness, and of the demands of mass production. The kitchen he designed for Bruynzeel in 1938 is a good example. It was highly progressive for its time. This was the first time that domestic appliances like a refrigerator and stove could be integrated in the design in a practical way. All the elements were designed with logical proportions, and customers could combine them as they wished. Handy details like glass containers, a pull-out bread board and storage racks made the kitchen a textbook example of comfort and efficiency.’ — Kunstmuseum Den Haag

 

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Quotes

 

The more uninteresting the letter, the more useful it is to the typographer.

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We used the camera only as a means of expression and as a visual medium that offers possibilities found in no other artistic technique, possibilities that the eye cannot catch in their totality. We tried to establish a characteristic vision of photography.

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Colour is a creative element, not a trimming.

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Among the few I have indicated, is there no dynamic man of action, the rebel who will help determine the aspect of the collective expression of tomorrow? Ponder this question and know that to make beautiful creations for the sake of their aesthetic value will have no social significance tomorrow, will be nonsensical self-gratification. Every era contains the conditions for providing a rebel.

 

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