Notes and News TIDINGS from the BOARD Dr. Albert Derolez, A
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Notes and news TIDINGSFROM THE BOARD Dr. Albert Derolez, a member of our Advisory Board, was appointcd in October 1972 to an Extraordinary Professorship at the Free University of Brussels,where he is now giving a course of lectures on Codicology and Miniatures. His inaugural lecture dealt with Codicology and Cultural History, and will be published shortly in the Journal of the Free Univcrsity. Albert Derolez was born in Blankenberge, Belgium, in 1934. In 1970 he took his doctorate in history, his thesis being entitled 'De Liber Floridus-autograaf (cod. Gand. 92). Een codicolo- gische studie'. Since 1962 he has been in charge of the Department of Manuscripts and Rare Books of the University Library of Ghent, where he is also director of the restoration workshop. Derolez's interest is directed principally at the medieval libraries, especially those of the Low Countrics, and their catalogues, though at thc same time he is interested in the more limited branches of codicology, such as the archaeological study of medieval manuscripts and their various characteristics. It is largely in this field, indeed, that Derolez's publications are to be found. Of these we may mention here De rniddeleeuwsebibliotheekgeschiedcnis. Opgaven, bronnen en stand van het onderzoek,in: Bibliotheekgids, 40 (1964), pp. 33-46; Census van de handschriften van deBibliotheek der RyksuniversiteitGent, VI. Ghent 1964, 64 pp. ; Corpus catal(?qortilliBelgii. De rniddelecuUJsebibliotheekscatalogi der Zi.iidehke Nederlanden,the first volume of which, dealing with the province of West Flanders, appeared in 1966. In the same year, together with E. I. Strubbe, Derolez completed the monumental edition of thc Liber Floridus: Lambertus S. Audomari canonicus, Liber floridus.Gandavi, Story-Scientia, T966,xlvii - 58o - 1 14pp., 124 Pl. Albert Derolez belongs to various societies and associations,notably the Royal Belgian Society of Linguistics, Literature and History, the Belgian Committee on Comparative Church History, and the Dutch Literature Society in Leiden. He teaches on the Librarianship course run by the city of Antwerp. THEWORK OF PIETZWART Early this year the Hague City Museum (Haags Gemeentemuseum), in the person of Kccs Broos, a member of the staff, arranged a retrospective exhibition of the work of the architect, industrial designer and typographer Piet Zwart, now in his eighty-ninth ycar. The 96-page catalogue, produced with the support of thc Prince Bernhard Fund, provides a wealth of information: bio- and bibliography, commentary, criticism, quotations from Zwart's numerous writings on his own aims and on fundamental problems of design (all in Dutch) together with illustrations of his work. Taken as a whole the catalogue constitutes the most complete study now available on this artist, whom Mr. Herbert Spencer has repeatedly brought to the attention of the English-speaking public. For a dozen years after his formal training at the then National School of Arts and Crafts, Zwart worked as a decorator in a style comparable to that of the Wicner Werkstitte and parallel to that of the 'Amsterdam School' in architecture. In 1918 he became friendly with two members of the Stijl group, Jan Wils and the Hungarian euaigreVilmos Huszar. He had differcn- ces, both in opinions and of a personal nature, with the founder and leader of the group, Theo van Doesburg, but despite this his discussionswith his two friends and the development of his own views on art and society brought about a radical change in his aims and principles. He turned towards architecture, industrial and exhibition design, and, soon, to typography, working along his own lines. His theories and productions in this field influenced the members 333 of the Stijl and Bauhaus circles as much as they stimulated him. After two years in the office of the architect Jan Wils, from 1921 till 1927 Zwart was chief designer for the 'grand old man' of modern Dutch architecture, H. P. Berlage. In this capacity he created many pieces of 'street furniture' for the city of The Hague, in addition to the in- terior of the Christian Science church there. It was also from these early years that his connexion with the Bruynzeel timber company in Zaandam dates. For many decades he assistedthem with their designs for prefabricated kitchens, as well as in thcir packaging and publicity (and once in the design of an ocean-going yacht). He took up photography and typography, learning the techniques as he went along. He became friends with Schwitters and Lissitsky, and around 1927 was invited to join the German 'Ring neuer Werbegestalter', which included all the designers working along thc lincs of Tschichold's Die Neue Typographie.By then his typography for the NKF cableworks in Delft (from 1923) had made him well known among printing and ad- vertising iconoclasts. The influential Secretary-General of the Dutch post office (PTT), J. F. van Royen - himself the owner of a private press in the Doves tradition (the Kunera Pers, successor to De Zilverdistel) but a staunch supporter of any new movement of sufficient quality in the industrial arts - repeatedly commissioned typographical work from Zwart, including postage stamps in photomontage(193 I). A 52-page four-colour gravure educational book on the postal services designed for schoolchildren, Het Boek van PTT (1938), remains one of his most competent and inspired works. For many years Zwart taught at the art school in Rotterdam. From this post he influenced - as did like-minded colleagues such as Paul Schuitema and Gerrit Kiljan in The Hague - what was to become the post-war generation of Dutch typographers, of whom Zwart's pupil Dick Elfers was the lcading figure. Publicity designers throughout the country, down to the very youngest, hold Piet Zwart in high esteem - which is a satisfaction seldom experienced by an artist of Zwart's age. It is the daring imagination and sound principles manifested in his work of half a century ago, and again so amply demonstrated in the recent exhibition and its catalogue, which appeal to anyone faced with the problem of how to catch the attention of an indifferent or even hostile public, and how to convey to such a public, at a glance, the essence of a message. Piet Zwart was one of the first leading typographers to show that he had learned from the best poster artists of the turn of the century how little the public will read at a glance, and who applied that lesson to the photographically illustrated typography of advertising matter,book- covers, brochures and coffee-table books. He rightly ranks alongside fellow pioneers such as Moholy-Nagy, Herbert Bayer and Tschichold. REFLETSDE LABIBLIOPHILIE EN BELGIQUEII From 3 March to 3 1 March, the Société Royale des Bibliophiles et Iconophiles de Belgique held an exhibition at the Royal Library in Brussels. It looks as if this is becoming a very lively tradition. Indeed, in 1958, the Société put on show the Richessesde la Bibliophiliebelge as a tri- bute to foreign book-collectors who had come to visit Expo 58. They met with such success that there was a Richessesde la Bibliophiliebelge II exhibition, again at the Royal Library. In the meantime, however, they had celebrated their 'Cinquantenaire' with another display of their treasures. Then, in 1969, there came a first exhibition more modestly presented as Reflets de la bibliophilie en Belgique, which clearly indicated the intention of merely reflecting in some measure the tendencies of current Belgian bibliophily, which are generally better studied in the relevant catalogues. One thing is clear from the very cover of Ref letsII: Belgian bibliophilies clearly want to encourage living native talents as well as honouring past and foreign workers. The cover itself was designed by Liliane Gerard, a former pupil at La Cambre of Micheline de Bellefroid, whose name is already familiar to book-collectors the world over. .