Theo van Doesburg was one of the most experimental artists of the avant-garde, yet he is often placed in the shadow of his contemporaries. Tate’s latest exhibition attempts to challenge this with an extensive array of Van Doesburg’s most striking creations alongside the greats such as Jean Arp, Piet Mondrian and Kurt Schwitters. This major exhibition provides a unique chance to see many of Van Doesburg’s works for the first time in the UK.

The nature of Van Doesburg’s style is one based on strict linear geometry, and the exhibition reflects this in a culmination of his combined talents in art, design and text. Van Doesburg founded the movement and magazine De Stijl from which, along with a mass of like-minded painters, architects and designers, he hoped to create a new social order in the aftermath of World War I. His European travels in the 1920s also added to his range of extensive connections and collaborations. Tate cleverly places Van Doesburg’s works alongside those that he influenced and was influenced by to show the activity that surrounded him at the height of his productivity.

As you walk through the colourful, graphic array of works, the most striking effect is the gradual awareness of the development of his style. It soon becomes apparent, after the first few rooms, that this dark horse, Van Doesburg, is really a rather important part of the avant-garde movement. His involvement in practically all areas of the group is astounding: as a promoter of Dutch Neoplasticism and Dada, through his influence on Bauhaus, his links with international Constructivists, and his creation of the Art Concret group in the 1930s.

Over 350 works cover the clear, uncomplicated space that Tate Modern has been blessed with. These include Van Doesberg’s designs for the Cafe Aubette in Strasbourg, with layer upon layer of carefully crafted designs, almost mathematical in their precision, building up to a physical realisation of an actual place. Just a glance across the same room leads you to Rietveld’s iconic Red-Blue chair, which complements Van Doesburg’s designs with its geometric simplicity and blocks of colour.

The exhibition features such a fantastic and overwhelming display of visual splendour that it can be hard to keep track amongst the typography, magazines, stained glass, film, music, sculpture and more. By this point in the show the viewer feels taken aback by the magnitude of Van Doesburg’s creativity, as well as the bombardment of media that does, admittedly, succeed in creating a sense of his involvement in so many aspects of the art world. But all of a sudden his rarely seen Counter-Composition paintings take the limelight, representing what Van Doesburg himself called the ‘heightened dynamism of the whole’. Their similarity to Mondrian is undeniable, but what Van Doesburg adds to them is a tension between the angles of the vertical and horizontal lines along with a daring introduction of the diagonal.

Even though it may be tedious to relentlessly examine every detail of this exhibition, it is definitely worth it. The Tate effectively creates an atmosphere of artistic obligation and admiration for an often forgotten master. We owe a lot to Van Doesburg’s aim for nothing less than perfection. Until May 16

NADINE LOACH