Peter Alma - Originele 1929 serie van 9 houtsnedes "de Kapitalistische orde" gesigneerd - Sold

• Complete series "the capitalist order" (8 + 1 extra woodcuts on rice paper), made and printed in 1929 by the versatile and socially engaged artist Peter Alma (1886-1969). Only the first woodcut "the General" is signed in pencil.
• All woodcuts in good, sharp condition, with the exception of "the bishop" where the rice paper has lost some of its color (yellowish).

PETER ALMA 1886-1969 Peter Alma attended the Academy of Visual Arts in The Hague from 1904 to 1906 and then the Académie Humbert in Paris until 1914. He became friends with Fernand Léger and Piet Mondrian and took part in the famous Salon des Indépendants. After a two-year stay in the artists' village of Laren, he settled in Meerhuizen in 1916, a country house on the Amstel, where more artists lived, including Charley Toorop. Inflamed by the fire of the Russian Revolution, Alma became involved in the struggles of the left-wing labor movement. Art for everyone: In addition to "painting easels", he focused on murals in public buildings and graphics. From 1919 he published woodcuts in the communist newspaper De Tribune, in which he also regularly discussed exhibitions. In 1921 he visits the Congress of the Third International in Moscow and during that trip he meets the artists El Lissitzky, Kandinsky, Tatlin and Malevich. Two years later, partly due to his efforts, the revolutionary “First Russian Art Exhibition” comes to the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. In 1924 he himself has a retrospective exhibition at the Stedelijk. (Havenwerker en de Pionier from 1924 is also on the current exhibition). After 1926 he focused more on foreign countries. His graphic work is included in international art publications such as i/10. As a result, Gerd Arntz asks him to join the Institute for Image Statistics in Vienna and he helps set up Isostat, the new Russian institute for image statistics in Moscow and Kharkiv. Alma was active in anti-fascist artist protest. Against the Olympic Games in Berlin with Brecht his 2nd wife and against the Spanish Civil War with his 3rd wife Lie ”the Dutch Passionaria”. Between 1930-1964 he receives numerous commissions for wall paintings such as in the Amstel station, tapestries, stained glass windows and mosaics. At the end of 1966, Alma has his last retrospective exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum. Alma's work is related to the De Stijl movement, partly because of the contact in Laren with his friend Mondrian and van der Leck. But he strove for a pure, simple, more understandable art, in the service of the social revolution. In all his work, from the minime pictograms (signatures), the striking woodcuts, the powerful paintings to the large mosaics and immense murals, Peter Alma is characterized by simplicity and clarity. His style is always monumental.