C?sar Domela is still revered today by many of his younger artist compatriots. For this reason the commitment shown by his daughters Anna and Lie has been fruitful. They combine their donation policy with the notion of - on the one hand - cultivating their father's work in all its artistic connections within the museum context and, on the other, keeping the memory alive of a body of work criticised betimes as disparate, but one that appears today to be all the more interesting in its startling array of forms. The current catalogue - published in conjunction with the donation to the Sprengel Museum as well as to the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag - constitutes the most comprehensive overview to date both in terms of subject matter and illustrations.\n\nFrom an early age C?sar Domela, who was born in 1900 in Amsterdam and died in 1992 in Paris, was drawn to the avant-garde's favoured locations. He subsequently lives in Berlin, Bern and Paris where, amongst many others, he meets Brancusi and L?ger along with Mondrian and van Doesburg, ultimately becoming the youngest member of the de Stijl group. The ensuing years are closely bound up with the migrations and also the flight of the European avant-garde later on. Participation in exhibitions, collaborations on magazine publications, agencies and perpetually re-established associations alternated in rapid succession. This is where his life-long friendship with Kurt Schwitters was forged, as was Domelas' concomitant participation in the group ?die abstrakten hannover? [the abstract hanoverians].\n\nForced to leave Berlin in 1933 following the Nazi seizure of power, he escapes the war and persecution with his family to Paris. His busy exhibition regime, which had already commenced with such promise in the 1930s, was resumed shortly after the war with participation in prestigious exhibitions and inclusion in publications soon to become legendary. \n\nDespite lifelong friendship and - for Domela's part - never ending admiration for Modrian and van Doesburg, he nonetheless distances himself in the Thirties from de Stijl's strict formal regimentation. It is possible even today to view his reliefs comprising the most varied materials and colour compositions as both highly innovative and pioneering. In this regard Domela shows himself to be an artist residing between the avant-gardes, so to speak. The changes implemented by him in a seemingly applied area illustrate in their own way the path towards the Post-modern.\n\nSeveral of the retrospectives - in Germany, too - only go as far as the late Eighties. After almost twenty years the view of C?sar Domela has now finally been brought up to date.