Gerrit Reitveld (1888-1964) Dutch, Iconic De Stijl Minimalist Berlin Chair - AS IS. Using simple planes and minimal lines, the Berlin Chair is one of the many unique abstract functional pieces the Dutch master created in the late 1910s and early 20s. 

Condition: Scuffs and paint loss on most edges. Commensurate with age. 

Size: 26 x 19 x 41 in. 

Gerrit Thomas Rietveld was born on June 24th, 1888 in Utrecht, The Netherlands, the son of a joiner. He left school at the age of 11 to be apprenticed to his father and enrolled at night school before working as a draughtsman for C. J. Begeer, a jeweller in Utrecht, from 1906 to 1911. By the time he opened his own furniture workshop in 1917, Rietveld had taught himself drawing, painting, and model-making, and soon after taught himself to make cabinets. He is most famous for designing and building his Red and Blue Chair that same year, which has become an iconic piece of modern furniture. Hoping that much of his furniture would eventually be mass-produced rather than handcrafted, Rietveld aimed for simplicity in construction. In 1918 he changed the colors after becoming influenced by the De Stijl (“The Style”) movement, of which he became a quintessential member in 1919, the same year in which he became an architect. The contacts that he made at De Stijl working alongside Theo van Doesburg and Jan Wils gave him the opportunity to exhibit abroad as well, and in 1923 Walter Gropius invited Rietveld to exhibit at the Bauhaus. He built the Rietveld Schröder House, in 1924 in close collaboration with the owner Truus Schröder-Schräder. Built in Utrecht on the Prins Hendriklaan 50, the house has a conventional ground floor, but is radical on the top floor, lacking fixed walls but instead relying on sliding walls to create and change living spaces. The house has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000. His involvement in the Schröder House exerted a strong influence on Truus’ daughter, Han Schröder, who became one of the first female architects in the Netherlands. Rietveld broke with De Stijl in 1928 and became associated with a more functionalist style of architecture, known as both Nieuwe Zakelijkheid and Nieuwe Bouwen. The same year he joined the Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne. From the late 1920s onward he was primarily concerned with social housing, inexpensive production methods, new materials, prefabrication, and standardization. From the 30s onward, however, all his commissions came from private individuals, and it was not until the 50s that he was able to put his progressive ideas about social housing into practice in projects in Utrecht and Reeuwijk. Rietveld designed the Zig-Zag Chair in 1934 and started the design of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, which was finished after his death. In 1951 Rietveld designed a retrospective exhibition about De Stijl which was held in Amsterdam, Venice and New York, resulting in a rediscovery of his work. He created the Dutch pavilion for the Venice Biennale (1953), the art academies in Amsterdam and Arnhem, and the press room for the UNESCO building in Paris. In order to handle all these projects Rietveld set up a partnership with the architects Johan van Dillen and J. van Tricht in 1961. Together they built hundreds of homes, many of them in the city of Utrecht. Rietveld died on June 25th, 1964 in Utrecht, and today he is remembered as one of the most important early voices of modern design and architecture in Dutch history.

Scuffs and paint loss on most edges. Commensurate with age.