The Dutchman Gerrit Rietveld (1888–1964) was one of the most important designers and architects of the 20th century.
After training as a draughtsman at the C.J.A. Begeer goldsmith workshops from 1904 to 1913, he joined the Kunstliefde group in 1911/1912 and founded his own furniture workshop in Utrecht in the Netherlands in 1917. Early on, he joined the De Stijl movement around Theo van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian, which was closely associated with Neoplasticism. His works from 1918 onwards clearly reflect the artistic ideals of this group.
Rietveld transformed objects and buildings into abstract compositions of lines and planes, mainly in black, white, grey and the primary colours yellow, red and blue. Yet when he developed his legendary Red Blue Chair in 1918, it did not yet have the striking colour scheme that gave it its name – this was only added in 1923.
In 1924–1925 came Rietveld's first architectural work, the now legendary Rietveld Schröder House. Looking for ways to develop his radical aesthetic ideas further, Rietveld then turned away from the De Stijl aesthetic and, until the end of the 1930s, experimented above all with innovative materials, including plywood and aluminium. This led to further surprising furniture designs, such as the legendary Zig-Zag Chair (c. 1932).
After 1945, Rietveld worked mainly as an architect, designing prestigious buildings such as the Dutch Pavilion at the Biennale grounds in Venice in Italy. The major De Stijl retrospective at MoMA in New York, USA, in 1952/53 secured his international recognition as one of the pioneers of modern design.
