Theo van Doesburg Theo van Doesburg Theo van Doesburg (, 30 August 1883 – 7 March 1931) was a Dutch artist, who practiced painting, writing, poetry and architecture. He is best known as the founder and leader of De Stijl. He was married to artist, pianist and choreographer Nelly van Doesburg. Theo van Doesburg was born Christian Emil Marie Küpper on 30 August 1883, in Utrecht, the Netherlands, as the son of the photographer and Henrietta Catherina Margadant. After a short training in acting and singing he decided to become a painter. He always regarded his stepfather, Theodorus Doesburg, to be his natural
Death of the Virgin (van der Goes) 1480 when van der Goes began to excitedly talk about how he was a doomed, lost soul and attempted to commit suicide and had to be forcibly held down. This account greatly added to the painting's value in the eyes of late-19th-century painters. Vincent van Gogh mentions van der Goes three times in his letters, first in 1873 to his brother Theo, and on two more occasions when he wrote that he identified with the portrait of van der Goes in Emile Wauters's emotionally rendered 1872 painting "Hugo van der Goes Undergoing Treatment at the Red Cloister". Art historian Erwin