Chris Lebeau - Wandbespanning - linen material, France

Joris Johannes Christiaan (Chris) Lebeau (Amsterdam, May 26, 1878 - Dachau concentration camp, April 2, 1945) was a Dutch designer, painter and anarchist. Lebeau was born in a basement house in Amsterdam as the fourth and last child in a working-class family. Father Lebeau was a socialist. Lebeau studied at the Applied Arts School Quellinus Amsterdam from 1892 to 1895, then at the Rijksschool voor Kunstnijverheid Amsterdam from 1895 to 1899. In 1904 he became a teacher at the Haarlem Applied Arts School until 1914. His students included Bertha Bake, Johan Briedé, Willem Cordel, Jan Mankes and Emilie van Waveren-Resink. Lebeau was a prolific designer: in addition to designs for wallpaper, he was involved in batik, painting, drawing, making ex-libris, and designing bookbindings and stamps, such as the flying pigeon number series, known among philatelists. Lebeau professed his beliefs with great vehemence. He called himself a religious anarcho-communist. In 1904 he was co-founder of the Dutch Association for Crafts and Industry (VANK). After the National Socialists came to power in Germany in 1933, Lebeau entered into a marriage of convenience with a German Jewish refugee. In the same period, he took Sixta Heddema under his wing as an apprentice. During the occupation, Lebeau and Heddema used their artistic knowledge to forge documents. On November 3, 1943, Lebeau, his wife, and Heddema were arrested for helping Jewish Dutchmen. He could be released if he promised to abstain from illegal work, but he declined and was sent to the Dachau concentration camp on 25 May 1944. He died there of exhaustion. His work was secured by Heddema, who survived.