The images and information presented below are for the instruction of students and scholarly research.
Cesar Domela (1900-1992)
Geometric Composition #4
Cesar Domela was born in Amsterdam and began to seriously paint at the age of 18. Domela had no formal artistic training and like so many other Abstract painters, was self taught. He moved to Switzerland at the age of 19, and exposed with the “Novembergruppe” in Berlin in 1923.
Domela traveled to Paris the following year and until 1925 followed the De Stijl art movement.
Composition 1924
The strict rules and guidelines of De Stijl proved to disagree with Domela, so he moved away from their style and began to focus on sculpture. Domela would work in a number of mediums to create his sculpture, from glass to brass, wood and plexiglass.
Relief #15 Mixed Media Sculpture, 1943
Sculpture Resin and Brass, 1970
Sculpture 1962
He created a number of works and traveled between Paris and Berlin often from 1927 to 1933, but the emergence of Nazi power eventually led Domela to stay in Paris.
Composition 1950
Composition 1957
Collage 1958
In general, Domela’s oeuvre is filled with compositions in oil and gouache, mostly Abstract and rarely figurative in nature. Domela continued to paint well into the 1970’s. Because he lived nearly to the end of the 20th century and traveled often, the likelihood of owning one of his Abstract compositions is great.
