The painter, designer, and architect Henry van de Velde (1863–1957) played a crucial role in expanding modernist aesthetics beyond Paris and beyond painting. Opposing growing nationalism around 1900, he sought to make painting the basis of an aesthetic that transcended boundaries between the arts and between nations through his work in Belgium, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. Van de Velde’s designs for homes, museums, and theaters received international recognition. The artist, often associated with the Art Nouveau and Jugendstil, developed a style of abstraction that he taught in his School of Applied Arts in Weimar, the immediate precursor of and model for the Bauhaus. As a leading member of the German Werkbund, he helped shaped the fields of modern architecture and design. This long-awaited book, the first major work on van de Velde in English, firmly positions him as one of the twentieth century’s most influential artists and an essential voice within the modern movement.

"Henry van de Velde (1863-1957) is a pivotal figure in design history: a bridge between nineteenth-century eclecticism and the emergence of a modern style. His range was prodigious: from furniture, domestic and shop interiors to ceramics, textiles, dresses, jewelery, silverware and books. He was also the architect of large private houses, theatres, museums and art galleries." --back cover of book

Few artists have been as versatile as Henry van de Velde (1863-1957). Trained initially as a painter, he then developed as an architect, interior designer, designer and art advisor. He created a highly impressive oeuvre; with his furniture, silverware, porcelain, jewellery, book design and other creations, always managing to combine both practicality with unique style and elegance. This collection highlights the diversity of his work and is a reflection of his originality and talent in crossing the boundaries between a range of different art forms. AUTHOR: Werner Adriaenses is a conservator in the department of 20th Century Decorative Arts at the Royal Musea for Art and History in Brussels. Thomas Fohl is a doctor in art history and special representative of the chairman of the Klassik-Stiftung Weimar. Sabine Walter works for the musea of the Klassik Stiftung Weimar. SELLING POINTS: A complete overview of the works of Henry van de Velde who, along with Victor Horta and Paul Hankar, can be considered as one of the main founders and representatives of Art Nouveau in Belgium Van de Velde was a major influence on German design and architecture at the beginning of the twentieth century 100 colour and 250 b/w illustrations

Originally published: London: Laurence King Pub., 2006.

DIVAbsorbing, exceptionally detailed study examines early trends, posters, and book illustrations, stylistic influences in architecture; furniture, jewelry, and other applied arts; plus perceptive discussions of artists associated with the movement. /div

"Around 1900, a small group of influential patrons, critics, writers, and artists turned Weimar, the capital of the small Duchy of Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach in present-day Germany, into a utopian centre of modern art and thought. Artists like Max Klinger, Edvard Munch, and Ludwig von Hofmann, and writers like André Gide, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and Rainer Maria Rilke sought to create a 'New Weimar and position Friedrich Nietzsche at its head as the radical prophet of modernity. Nietzsche's profound thinking, expressive language, and poignant aphoristic style made him the ideal philosopher of modernism. It is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world are eternally justified. With philosophical maxims, such as this from The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche became an extraordinary influence on artists and critics in their search for a 'new art,' a 'new man,' and, ultimately, a 'new society.' In 1902, two years after the philosopher's death, Max Klinger was commissioned to carve his portrait for the Villa Silberblick in Weimar, where the cult of Nietzsche was organized. Starting from a heavily reworked death mask, he executed the famous marble herm that still today adorns the reception room of the Nietzsche Archive. Only three monumental bronze versions were cast, one of which is now in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada. With this sculpture in focus, accompanied by a series of paintings, drawings, plaster casts, and small bronzes, 'Radical Modernism' will show how Klinger and his patrons invented the 'official' Nietzsche, transforming a highly expressionist portrait into an idealized classical cult image."--publisher.

Jewellery.