Wright Auction

As an art student at the University of California in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Michael Boyd created geometric abstract paintings that alluded to the compositions of great non-objective painters like Mondrian and Malevich, only to be struck by how difficult it was to achieve a minimal work without superfluous ornamentation. The “art of reduction,” as Boyd describes it, was more complicated than it seemed, and has enthralled the collector for years.

To Boyd, Rietveld’s oeuvre represents a purity of form, concentrated vigor with timeless appeal.

The same notion is what first appealed to Boyd in the work of Gerrit Rietveld, which he describes as “three-dimensional Mondrian”. A self-proclaimed fanatic for the Dutch master, Boyd’s selection of works by Rietveld (the cornerstone of his collection) speaks to his sensibilities on a personal level, “I’m captivated with the early or proto-modernism in that hand-built art and objects were meant to look like they were machine-made…on one level the objects have a hand-wrought folk art sensibility and on another level the pieces represent the struggle to get to a universal place without ego”.

To Boyd, Rietveld’s oeuvre represents a purity of form, concentrated vigor with timeless appeal. These are the qualities that drive his passion for collecting and inspire his own creative output. The exceptional works offered here are identity pieces for both Rietveld and Boyd, embodiments of ambition captured in singular designs, encapsulating the philosophy of both their creator and their devotee.

A sketch for this wheelbarrow appears in a letter to architect J.J.P. Oud dated October 5th, 1923. It is likely that Rietveld made the first wheelbarrow, a prototype, as a gift for Oud’s son Hans on the occasion of his fourth birthday in 1923. The present lot was crafted by G.A. van de Groenekan in the 1950s.