Jonkheer Willem Jacob Henri Berend Sandberg (1897-1984) known as Willem Sandberg was a Dutch

Dutch people

The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...

 typographer

Typography

Typography is the art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible. The arrangement of type involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading , adjusting the spaces between groups of letters and adjusting the space between pairs of letters...

 and museum curator

Curator

A curator is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, a curator or keeper of a cultural heritage institution is a content specialist responsible for an institution's collections and involved with the interpretation of heritage material...

.

He was born in Amersfoort

Amersfoort

Amersfoort is a municipality and the second largest city of the province of Utrecht in central Netherlands. The city is growing quickly but has a well-preserved and protected medieval centre. Amersfoort is one of the largest railway junctions in the country, because of its location on two of the...

, Holland in 1897 and studied art in Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

. He became a follower of the Mazdaznan

Mazdaznan

Mazdaznan is a syncretistic religious health movement based on Zoroastrian and Christian ideas with special focus on breathing exercises, vegetarian diet and body culture. It was founded at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century by Otoman Zar-Adusht Ha'nish, born Otto Hanisch...

 movement. As a young man he travelled, serving as an apprentice to a printer in Herrliberg

Herrliberg

Herrliberg is a municipality in the district of Meilen in the canton of Zürich in Switzerland.- History :There are findings dating back to the Bronze age....

, Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

. In 1927 he visited Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, where he studied Otto Neurath

Otto Neurath

Otto Neurath was an Austrian philosopher of science, sociologist, and political economist...

's Isotype

Isotype (pictograms)

Isotype is a method of showing social, technological, biological and historical connections in pictorial form...

 system. He continued visiting the Dessau

Dessau

Dessau is a town in Germany on the junction of the rivers Mulde and Elbe, in the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt. Since 1 July 2007, it is part of the merged town Dessau-Roßlau. Population of Dessau proper: 77,973 .-Geography:...

 Bauhaus

Bauhaus

', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...

 and meeting Naum Gabo

Naum Gabo

Naum Gabo KBE, born Naum Neemia Pevsner was a prominent Russian sculptor in the Constructivism movement and a pioneer of Kinetic Art.-Early life:...

.

Returning to Amsterdam he started work as a graphic designer utilising his printing skills and Neurath's Isotype system. In 1928 he started a long relationship with the Stedelijk Museum

Stedelijk Museum

Founded in 1874, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam is a museum for classic modern and contemporary art in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. It has been housed on the Paulus Potterstraat, next to Museum Square Museumplein and to the Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum and the Concertgebouw, in Amsterdam Zuid...

 and in 1932 became a member of VANK, the Dutch Society for Arts and Crafts. He soon joined the committee which determined the exhibitions of the museum. From 1937 to 1941 he was the museum's curator of modern art. Following the Second World War, he became the director of the Stedelijk Museum until his retirement in 1962.

During his tenure he expanded the museum and developed new exhibition techniques, for which he gained international renown. He applied his graphic design and typography skills to over 300 catalogues.

In his retirement he served on the committees for the Beaubourg in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 and the Israel Museum

Israel Museum

The Israel Museum, Jerusalem was founded in 1965 as Israel's national museum. It is situated on a hill in the Givat Ram neighborhood of Jerusalem, near the Bible Lands Museum, the Knesset, the Israeli Supreme Court, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem....

 in Jerusalem.

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