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Johan Thorn Prikker, Dutch, 1868-1932
Dutch Art Exhibition in Krefeld (Holländische Kunstaustellung in Krefeld), 1903
Color lithograph
Unframed: 33 5/8 x 47 1/2 inches (85.42 x 120.65 cm)
Framed: 40 1/2 inches x 4 feet 1 1/2 inches (102.87 x 125.73 cm)
Purchase: Nelson Gallery Foundation, F84-2
Location: Not on view
Thorn Prikker's famous poster for an exhibition of Dutch art in nearby Krefeld, Germany, demonstrates the restraint and symmetry manifested by the Art Nouveau style as adapted in Holland. The juxtaposition of positive and negative, dark and light versions of the same interlaced patterns is allied with a similar succession found in Celtic manuscript borders. The tulip-like floral forms, appropriate to the Netherlands, are combined with shapes related to the decorations on the batik, or wax-resist, textiles of Java, which the Dutch had governed since the 16th century. In the sidewise green "L" with orange circles is a reflection of a conventional arrangement in the Book of Kells. While the colors in the poster are as brilliant as Gaudi's stained glass panels in Barcelona, they are confined within a framework as rectilinear as the designs of Mackintosh in Glasgow. Prikker's poster embodies the reasoned Dutch approach to Art Nouveau, harmonizing exotic Javanese allusion with medieval decorative tradition, tempering severity with sensibility.
