Lot 302: * Hoff (Robert van "t, 1887-1979). A small archive

* Hoff (Robert van "t, 1887-1979). A small archive of family photo albums, art books and ephemera, including seven photo albums, five of the albums containing a total of approx. four hundred mounted small gelatin silver prints (largest approx. 7.5 x 5 cm but the majority approx. 3.5 x 3.5 cm), each album with a brief manuscript note of locus and chronology in van "t Hoff"s holograph, the albums covering the period 1922-24, from the birth of their daughter Megan (and two years later the birth of their son Walter), the first album beginning with two images of van "t Hoff"s house in Laren, Netherlands, the majority of other images being of Megan plus some of family and friends and latterly Walter also, whilst living in Torquay, Barnet and Rushington, Sussex, the fifth album including two images with Robert identifiable by context, together with two further albums, one containing ninety-six window-mounted views of Europe, c. 1920s, including Belgium, Holland and northern France, the other containing ninety-three window-mounted small format photos of van "t Hoff"s family, also containing two photos of Robert (here with moustache and goatee), many of the small studies of the two babies taken in an artistic manner with careful use of light and shade, occ. ink annotations but mostly identifying the specific age of the child concerned, contemp. cloth, large 8vo/oblong 8vo, together with eight orig. issues of De Stijl (1.5, 2.1, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, 7.0, 10 & 5.12), plus orig. cloth-bound books for Years 1 and 2, each with pencil initials R. H., plus Wilhelm Theodore Reuter"s copy of a monograph "Frank Lloyd Wright", pub. 1911, ownership bookplate to half-title verso and pencil note in van "t Hoff"s hand "received from his daughter, Summer 1965", modern cloth, sl. rubbed and soiled, small folio, plus a woodcut of a lighthouse, signed W[alter] van "t Hoff in the image, an orig. poster design in pencil [by Megan?] for a dance given by the Women"s Land Army, 56 x 38 cm, plus a large sheet of sketches of buildings, bridges, figures and abstract designs by Megan, a pencil sketch of a car accident [by Megan?], a folder of approx. 70 leaflets, letters, snapshots and news cuttings, c. 1941-45, relating to Megan"s time with the Women"s Land Army, plus two autograph letters in Dutch initialled "RH" by Robert van "t Hoff, one a rough draft, and one a fair copy of the same letter, both dated 11 February 1974, addressed to Dr Asselbergs explaining that he has nothing left of interest for the archive and that his photographs are merely family photos, also noting that he kept in contact with Mondrian, each 2 pp., 4to. Robert van "t Hoff (1887-1979), Dutch architect and furniture designer, who from 1917 became an influential member of De Stijl movement. Family wealth allowed him to subsidise the publication of De Stijl journal, but for political reasons he split with the founder Theo van Doesburg in 1922, withdrawing from artistic activity and declaring himself an "ex architect". He spent much of the rest of his life in England promoting his anarchist ideas, settling permanently in Hampshire from 1937. This intriguing personal archive of photographs demonstrates an artist with a designer"s eye for line and form, light and shade, and also contains previously unknown photographs of van "t Hoff himself. (-)