The Dutch make the most of their stars – why can’t we?

I’d just returned from a long weekend visiting relatives in The Netherlands to read Michael Johnson’s entertaining piece on the world’s first graphic design museum in Breda (DW 3 July).

The reason the Dutch seem so much more prepared to embrace the graphic arts is that the nation is so steeped in visual culture – we have Shakespeare, they have Rembrandt. I remember Gert Dumbar saying that even the tax return forms in Holland are beautifully designed.

At the Gemeente Museum in the Hague I stumbled upon an inspired exhibition devoted to Piet Zwart. Not a single room, but seven or eight. It’s the equivalent of, say, the Hayward Gallery staging an Alan Fletcher show – which shows just how far we are lagging behind.

Jim Davies, Totalcontent, by e-mail