The son of an often-unemployed house painter, Van der Leck grew up in the slums of Utrecht as the fourth of eight children, only half of whom survived to adulthood. Schooled only until the age of fourteen, he apprenticed in a stained-glass workshop during Utrecht’s neo-Gothic building boom at the end of the nineteenth century. This experience proved pivotal to Van der Leck’s artistic development: perceiving color as light, defined by stark contrasts and bold simplicity. After eight years, Van der Leck earned a scholarship to Amsterdam’s Rijksakademie, where his talent was recognized by August Allebé.

Van der Leck’s career was profoundly shaped by the patronage of Helene Kröller-Müller and her advisor H.P. Bremmer. Between 1914 and 1918—and again from 1920 to 1921—he received a stipend from Kröller-Müller in exchange for his entire artistic output, now in the Kröller-Müler Museum in Otterlo. Among these works is his important painting from 1915 Prenten kijken, accompanied by four small preparatory studies in colored chalk. The existence of a 1:1 study suggests a critical step in the creative process between these sketches and the finished painting.

Van der Leck’s work is characterized by the reduction of visual elements to geometric forms and a bold palette of primary colors, black, and white. This innovative approach became the foundation for De Stijl, the Dutch art movement that sought to distill art to its most essential elements. As a founding member of De Stijl in 1917, Van der Leck contributed to the movement’s vision of unifying art, architecture, and design through simplicity, harmony, and order. His exposure to stained glass, interior design, and applied arts demonstrated how De Stijl principles could transcend traditional mediums, blending fine art with functional objects to transform society’s aesthetics.

Van der Leck’s involvement with De Stijl was short-lived. He left over disagreements regarding its strict formal rules, although his early experiments with color and form were pivotal in defining the movement’s direction. The innovative ideas behind Prenten Kijken undoubtedly foreshadowed the radical ideals that van der Leck helped to establish within De Stijl just two years later.