SURFACE AND SPACE

In addition to his varied activities as a painter, theoretician, architect, critic, Dadaist and author, Theo van Doesburg was also an occasional photographer — an area of his work that has so far remained largely unknown. On the assumption that his photographs of his studios not only record changes in his private surroundings but also accompany and explain the artistic positions he was developing, the aim of this essay is to examine the surviving photographs in which Van Doesburg (but also other photographers) staged both the rooms and spaces in which he worked, in order to investigate what they reveal about his conception of modern art. First, however, we must acknowledge that only a few photographs from Van Doesburg's estate can be designated as the artist's own work; we must therefore conclude on their authorship by reconstruction, without being able to achieve complete certainty in this regard. Only for some of these original photographs — no glass negatives have survived — do we have positive proof: Van Doesburg's self-portrait with Nelly and camera in front of a mirror, for example, was evidently shot in Mondrian's studio at 26, rue du départ in Paris (1515 AB 9748) in 1921. Some of the photographic prints have inscriptions on the back: 1597 AB 9878 shows Hans Arp and Nelly in the garden of Paul Eluard; on the back, Nelly — assuming it was her — noted “photo Does.” Aside from a few preserved “artistic” or experimental prints, Van Doesburg produced most of his photographs for the purposes of documentation: in order to print them with his own articles or in journals, or to send them to colleagues and friends such as Piet Mondrian or people at the Bauhaus with whom he wished to discuss the progress of his art. There are entire passages in letters to friends dealing with the technical difficulties involved in reproducing colored paintings in black-and-white. Although an autodidact in photographic procedures, Van Doesburg was still able to think the problems through and make use of colored filters to correct the conversion of chromaticity in prints. In 1922 he explained to Evert Rinsema how to use this photographic technique: “They must use a yellow filter for the colors, otherwise the blue will come out entirely white and the yellow entirely black.