Brief aan Jan Veth Possibly 1906

This is a letter to Jan Veth, written by Antoon Derkinderen in 1908. It’s a handwritten document, which in itself speaks to a particular moment in time, before the ubiquity of typewriters, let alone computers. But what does it tell us about the social conditions that shape artistic production? Well, Derkinderen is writing to share his thoughts on the lot of the glass painters, referring to the workplace, fire and water and mentioning the name Lurges. What we see here is the artist as organiser, as a kind of manager of artistic labour. The letter gives a fascinating insight into the artistic and social networks that existed in the Netherlands at the turn of the century. We can see that Derkinderen’s role extended beyond the purely artistic, to include the coordination of other people’s work. To understand these networks more fully, we can turn to archival sources, such as artist’s correspondence, exhibition catalogues, and institutional records. Together, they shed light on the meaning of art as contingent on its social and institutional context.