A PINE 'ZIG-ZAG' CHAIR

Until 1927 the family Wouters lived a community in Blaricum called the Internationale Broederschap, also known as the community of Prof. Van Rees. Tjitte Wouters (1892-1976), grandfather of the present owner of the zigzag chair, worked for printer and publisher Vrede, which was part of the community. Later he and his wife Gerda Wouters-ter Haar worked for the Humanitaire School in Laren founded by Jacob van Rees in 1903. According to the present owner, his grandparents founded a youth hostel in Laren in circa 1936. By repute they ordered this chair, amongst other items, from Van de Groenekan to furnish the hostel. It is likely that the Wouters family was familiar with the Stijl movement and with Gerrit Rietveld in particular. Rietveld and the painter Otto van Rees (1884-1957), son of Jacob van Rees, shared an atelier in the 1930s in Utrecht and it was during those same years that Rietveld designed Huis Hildebrand in Blaricum, now in the possession of the Vereniging Hendrick de Keyser.