Theo van Doesburg was a versatile artist and theorist. From 1915 he had contact with the painter Piet Mondrian. In 1916 he met the architect Oud, as well as the painters Piet Mondrian, Bart van der Leck and Vilmos Huszár.
In 1917 Van Doesburg published the art magazine De Stijl. Among the first ‘contributors’ to De Stijl were, in addition to Van Doesburg, the experimental writer Anthony Kok, the painters Mondrian, Huszár and Van der Leck, the architects J.J.P. Oud and Jan Wils and the Italian Futurist Gino Severini. Later came the architect Robert van ‘t Hoff, the Belgian sculptor Georges Vantongerloo and the furniture maker Gerrit Rietveld. The artists knew each other of course, but the majority of communication took place via letter correspondence. Mondrian and Rietveld, for example, never met.
By the year 1920 most members had left the group, while the remaining members wrote not at all or only sporadically for De Stijl. The magazine was therefore in a crisis. Nevertheless, this did not prevent Van Doesburg from continuing to publish De Stijl and to present it as a coherent group. In 1921 El Lissitzky became Van Doesburg’s most important collaborator.
In 1927 Van Doesburg asked all former members to contribute to the 10th anniversary edition of De Stijl, which did not appear until 1928. Also in 1928 appeared the provisional last issue of De Stijl, an issue entirely devoted to the Aubette, with wall paintings by Van Doesburg. In 1931 Van Doesburg died.
