Artist

(b. 1863, Antwerpen, d. 1957, Zürich)

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Details

Belgian architect, designer, and painter. He was an influential figure in progressive circles. Although he first practiced as a painter in Paris in the Neo-Impressionist and Symbolist styles, in 1892 he abandoned painting to concentrate on architecture and design, fields in which he was strongly influenced by the writings of British design reformers John Ruskin and William Morris. He studied painting at the Académie des Beaux-Arts, Antwerp, from 1882 to 1884. He worked as a painter and interior decorator in Antwerp and Brussels from 1885 to 1894 and began to practice architecture in Brussels in 1895. Van de Velde moved to Germany in 1900 and became the artistic director to the Grand Duke of Saxony, at Weimar ca. 1902. From 1908 to 1914 he served as the director of the Kunstgewerbeschule which he designed and built from 1904 to 1906 and the Kunsthochschule which he designed either from 1904 to 1911 or in 1906. He later lived in Switzerland and the Netherlands where he moved in 1917. He returned to Brussels ca. 1925 where he founded the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture which he ran from 1925 to 1936. He moved to Switzerland in 1947. //

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Category	Artists
Artists by letter	V
Artist nationality	Belgian