Audax Textielmuseum Tilburg

De vijfde wand - Work by Diek Zweegman (1937 - 2004)

Diek Zweegman as industrial designer
Diek Zweegman (born in Vlissingen 28 January 1937 - died in Amsterdam 25 September 2004) graduated from the Academie van Beeldende Kunsten in Rotterdam in 1959. Following this, she worked at renowned textile companies such as Het Paapje, Weverij De Ploeg and the Van Besouw carpet factory. As an industrial designer she was not wary of innovations and never avoided experimentation. In that sense she identified with the original ideas and fresh approach of Benno Premsela, on whose behalf she successfully designed carpets for eighteen years for Van Besouw in Goirle. For a long time ‘De vijfde wand’ (the fifth wall) was a graphic term for carpeting in designer and architecture circles.

Zweegman was the de longest-serving designer at Van Besouw. Among the many designs she produced at this factory were the carpets that can confidently be called pioneering. Examples include: the linen carpet (also flax carpet) '5401' from 1979 and the synthetic carpet '2805' from 1993. The first was innovatory because never before had such a difficult material as linen been used for a carpet, while with the second carpet, this time knitted, the designer revealed its synthetic yarns in all their shining glory at a time when natural materials, especially at Van Besouw, were enjoying their heyday. She was awarded the Rotterdam Design Prize and the Emmy van Leersum prize for the carpet. A remarkable achievement for ‘something so banal as carpeting’, as the product was described in one of the jury rapports. It was to be her swan song, for not long afterwards, BRS Premsela Vonk underwent a reorganisation and this put an end to Diek Zweegman’s career as a designer.

Industrial textile design lecturer
Another important element in Diek Zweegman’s career was her many years' lectureship at the textile design department at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. From 1975 to 1991 she taught her students - many of whom went on to become well-known and successful artists and designers - the tricks of the trade and encouraged them to develop their talents.

Autonomous work
Diek Zweegman combined her work in the industry and her teaching with autonomous work. For her, this was literally ‘free’, because it was free of the limitations accompanying carpet design. From the 1970s she participated in various exhibitions with a number of what were termed ‘line drawings’, work made with great precision and endless patience with a drawing pen.

When, in the mid nineties, she was obliged to end her career at BRS Premsela Vonk and she also stopped teaching, she opted for a completely new field: photography. Her large-sized, colour photographs of flowers, plants and shells reduced to all but abstractions were also successful. In her photographs the emphasis is on the refined texture of the objects photographed. Zweegman continued to photograph until her death in 2004.

The exhibition in Tilburg
The Textielmuseum has a large collection of drawings and carpet swatches by Diek Zweegman. A selection of these has been made for the exhibition. It covers all aspects of Zweegman’s work. A number of her silk-screen prints from her time at Het Paapje in the early 1960s primarily display her flower and leaf designs. Her autonomous work is well represented. In addition to the line drawings in ink previously mentioned, a number of drawings in mixed techniques are included that accompany an exchange of letters dating back to the 1980s. These drawings all comprise two pages: a mother drawing and a ‘heart’. The ‘heart’ was sent with the letter. The separate drawings have been reunited for the exhibition. 

In a special feature for this exhibition, filmmaker and producer Ruben Broekhuis has made a short film. Three former students of Diek Zweegman discuss her importance as a lecturer. She herself talks at length in a film made by filmmaker/design consultant Andrew Fallon, in an interview recorded with designer Guus Ros that was broadcast a few months before her death in 2004. In this we learn that Diek Zweegman considered herself chiefly as a link in a team. It would not, however, be an exaggeration to say that the Van Besouw carpet collection would never have been what it was without Diek Zweegman.

The exhibition has been compiled by guest curator Annemarie de Bree, art historian, in collaboration with Hanneke Oosterhof, head of Presentation and Collection at the Textielmuseum. Studio Van Eijk en Van der Lubbe were responsible for the design, Robbert Zweegman for the graphic design.

There is a book accompanying the exhibition ‘De vijfde wand. Werk van Diek Zweegman 1937-2004.’ The authors are Annemarie de Bree and Marjan Unger. Graphic design: Robbert Zweegman. The book is published by 010 publishers. Retail price € 24.50.

The book is on sale both in the museum TextielShop and in bookstores.