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Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan (), after 1906 known as Piet Mondrian (, also , ; 7 March 1872 – 1 February 1944), was a Dutch
painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...
and art theoretician who is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. He is known for being one of the pioneers of 20th-century
abstract art Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th ...
, as he changed his artistic direction from figurative painting to an increasingly abstract style, until he reached a point where his artistic vocabulary was reduced to simple geometric elements. Mondrian's art was highly utopian and was concerned with a search for universal values and aesthetics. He proclaimed in 1914: "Art is higher than reality and has no direct relation to reality. To approach the spiritual in art, one will make as little use as possible of reality, because reality is opposed to the spiritual. We find ourselves in the presence of an abstract art. Art should be above reality, otherwise it would have no value for man." His art, however, always remained rooted in nature. He was a contributor to the ''
De Stijl ''De Stijl'' (; ), Dutch for "The Style", also known as Neoplasticism, was a Dutch art movement founded in 1917 in Leiden. De Stijl consisted of artists and architects. In a more narrow sense, the term ''De Stijl'' is used to refer to a body o ...
'' art movement and group, which he co-founded with
Theo van Doesburg Theo van Doesburg (, 30 August 1883 – 7 March 1931) was a Dutch artist, who practiced painting, writing, poetry and architecture. He is best known as the founder and leader of De Stijl. He was married to artist, pianist and choreographer Nelly ...
. He evolved a non-representational form which he termed ''Neoplasticism''. This was the new 'pure plastic art' which he believed was necessary in order to create 'universal beauty'. To express this, Mondrian eventually decided to limit his formal vocabulary to the three
primary colors A set of primary colors or primary colours (see spelling differences) consists of colorants or colored lights that can be mixed in varying amounts to produce a gamut of colors. This is the essential method used to create the perception of a br ...
(red, blue and yellow), the three primary values (black, white and gray) and the two primary directions (horizontal and vertical). Mondrian's arrival in
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
from the Netherlands in 1911 marked the beginning of a period of profound change. He encountered experiments in
Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...
and with the intent of integrating himself within the Parisian avant-garde removed an 'a' from the Dutch spelling of his name (Mondriaan). Mondrian's work had an enormous influence on 20th century art, influencing not only the course of abstract painting and numerous major styles and art movements (e.g. Color Field painting,
Abstract Expressionism Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...
and
Minimalism In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...
), but also fields outside the domain of painting, such as
design A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design'' ...
,
architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...
and
fashion Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy at a particular period and place and in a specific context, of clothing, footwear, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and body posture. The term implies a look defined by the fashion in ...
. Design historian
Stephen Bayley Stephen Paul Bayley (born 13 October 1951) is a British writer and critic, known particularly for his commentary on architecture and design. He was founding CEO of the Design Museum in London in 1989, and has been a regular architecture, art ...
said: "Mondrian has come to mean
Modernism Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
. His name and his work sum up the High Modernist ideal. I don't like the word 'iconic', so let's say that he's become totemic – a totem for everything Modernism set out to be."


Life


Netherlands (1872–1911)

Mondrian was born in
Amersfoort Amersfoort () is a city and municipality in the province of Utrecht, Netherlands, about 20 km from the city of Utrecht and 40 km south east of Amsterdam. As of 1 December 2021, the municipality had a population of 158,531, making it the second- ...
,
province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...
of
Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city and a List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, pro ...
in the
Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
, the second of his parents' children. He was descended from Christian Dirkzoon Monderyan who lived in
The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...
as early as 1670.Michel Seuphor, ''Piet Mondrian: Life and Work'' (New York: Harry N. Abrams), pp. 44 and 407. The family moved to
Winterswijk Winterswijk (; also known as ''Winterswiek'' or ''Wenters'') is a municipality and a town in the eastern Netherlands. It has a population of and is situated in the Achterhoek, which lies in the easternmost part of the province of Gelderland in th ...
when his father, Pieter Cornelius Mondrian, was appointed head teacher at a local primary school. Mondrian was introduced to art from an early age. His father was a qualified drawing teacher, and, with his uncle, Fritz Mondrian (a pupil of
Willem Maris Willem Maris (18 February 1844 – 10 October 1910) was a Dutch landscape painter of the Hague School. Biography He was born in The Hague. Willem was the third in a family of five children. His two brothers Jacob and Matthijs Maris preceded him ...
of the
Hague School The Hague School is a group of artists who lived and worked in The Hague between 1860 and 1890. Their work was heavily influenced by the realist painters of the French Barbizon school. The painters of the Hague school generally made use of relati ...
of artists), the younger Piet often painted and drew along the river Gein. After a strict
Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
upbringing, in 1892, Mondrian entered the Academy for Fine Art in
Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
. He was already qualified as a teacher. He began his career as a teacher in
primary education Primary education or elementary education is typically the first stage of formal education, coming after preschool/kindergarten and before secondary school. Primary education takes place in ''primary schools'', ''elementary schools'', or first ...
, but he also practiced
painting Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ...
. Most of his work from this period is naturalistic or
Impressionistic Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...
, consisting largely of
landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...
s. These
pastoral A pastoral lifestyle is that of shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. It lends its name to a genre of literature, art, and music (pastorale) that depicts ...
images of his native country depict
windmill A windmill is a structure that converts wind power into rotational energy using vanes called windmill sail, sails or blades, specifically to mill (grinding), mill grain (gristmills), but the term is also extended to windpumps, wind turbines, and ...
s, fields, and
river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...
s, initially in the Dutch Impressionist manner of the Hague School and then in a variety of styles and techniques that attest to his search for a personal style. These paintings are representational, and they illustrate the influence that various artistic movements had on Mondrian, including
pointillism Pointillism (, ) is a technique of painting in which small, distinct dots of color are applied in patterns to form an image. Georges Seurat and Paul Signac developed the technique in 1886, branching from Impressionism. The term "Pointillism" wa ...
and the vivid colors of
Fauvism Fauvism /ˈfoʊvɪzm̩/ is the style of ''les Fauves'' (French language, French for "the wild beasts"), a group of early 20th-century modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the Representation (arts), repr ...
. In 1893 he had his first exhibition. On display in the
Gemeentemuseum Den Haag The Kunstmuseum Den Haag is an art museum in The Hague in the Netherlands, founded in 1866 as the Museum voor Moderne Kunst. Later, until 1998, it was known as Haags Gemeentemuseum, and until the end of September 2019 as Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. I ...
are a number of paintings from this period, including such
Post-Impressionist Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction ag ...
works as ''The Red Mill'' and ''Trees in Moonrise''. Another painting, ''Evening'' (''Avond'') (1908), depicting a tree in a field at dusk, even augurs future developments by using a palette consisting almost entirely of red, yellow, and blue. Although ''Avond'' is only limitedly abstract, it is the earliest Mondrian painting to emphasize
primary colors A set of primary colors or primary colours (see spelling differences) consists of colorants or colored lights that can be mixed in varying amounts to produce a gamut of colors. This is the essential method used to create the perception of a br ...
. Mondrian's earliest paintings showing a degree of abstraction are a series of canvases from 1905 to 1908 that depict dim scenes of indistinct trees and houses reflected in still water. Although the result leads the viewer to begin focusing on the forms over the content, these paintings are still firmly rooted in nature, and it is only the knowledge of Mondrian's later achievements that leads one to search in these works for the roots of his future abstraction. Mondrian's art was intimately related to his spiritual and philosophical studies. In 1908, he became interested in the theosophical movement launched by
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, uk, Олена Петрівна Блаватська, Olena Petrivna Blavatska (; – 8 May 1891), often known as Madame Blavatsky, was a Russian mystic and author who co-founded the Theosophical Society in 1875 ...
in the late 19th century, and in 1909 he joined the Dutch branch of the
Theosophical Society The Theosophical Society, founded in 1875, is a worldwide body with the aim to advance the ideas of Theosophy in continuation of previous Theosophists, especially the Greek and Alexandrian Neo-Platonic philosophers dating back to 3rd century CE ...
. The work of Blavatsky and a parallel spiritual movement,
Rudolf Steiner Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner (27 or 25 February 1861 – 30 March 1925) was an Austrian occultist, social reformer, architect, esotericist, and claimed clairvoyant. Steiner gained initial recognition at the end of the nineteenth century as a ...
's
Anthroposophy Anthroposophy is a spiritualist movement founded in the early 20th century by the esotericist Rudolf Steiner that postulates the existence of an objective, intellectually comprehensible spiritual world, accessible to human experience. Followers ...
, significantly affected the further development of his aesthetic. Blavatsky believed that it was possible to attain a more profound knowledge of nature than that provided by
empirical Empirical evidence for a proposition is evidence, i.e. what supports or counters this proposition, that is constituted by or accessible to sense experience or experimental procedure. Empirical evidence is of central importance to the sciences and ...
means, and much of Mondrian's work for the rest of his life was inspired by his search for that spiritual knowledge. In 1918, he wrote "I got everything from the Secret Doctrine", referring to a book written by Blavatsky. In 1921, in a letter to Steiner, Mondrian argued that his neoplasticism was "the art of the foreseeable future for all true Anthroposophists and Theosophists". He remained a committed Theosophist in subsequent years, although he also believed that his own artistic current, neoplasticism, would eventually become part of a larger, ecumenical spirituality. Mondrian and his later work were deeply influenced by the 1911 ''
Moderne Kunstkring Moderne Kunstkring (Modern Art Circle) was a progressive artists' club and society of Dutch artists founded in 1910 by the painter and critic with Jan Sluijters.Chilvers, Ian and John Glaves-Smith. ''A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art''. ...
'' exhibition of
Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...
in
Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
. His search for simplification is shown in two versions of ''Still Life with Ginger Pot'' (''Stilleven met Gemberpot''). The 1911 version, is Cubist; in the 1912 version, the objects are reduced to a round shape with
triangle A triangle is a polygon with three Edge (geometry), edges and three Vertex (geometry), vertices. It is one of the basic shapes in geometry. A triangle with vertices ''A'', ''B'', and ''C'' is denoted \triangle ABC. In Euclidean geometry, an ...
s and
rectangle In Euclidean plane geometry, a rectangle is a quadrilateral with four right angles. It can also be defined as: an equiangular quadrilateral, since equiangular means that all of its angles are equal (360°/4 = 90°); or a parallelogram containi ...
s.


Paris (1911–1914)

In 1911, Mondrian moved to
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
and changed his name, dropping an "a" from "Mondriaan", to emphasize his departure from the Netherlands, and his integration within the Parisian
avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
. While in Paris, the influence of the
Cubist Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...
style of
Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
and
Georges Braque Georges Braque ( , ; 13 May 1882 – 31 August 1963) was a major 20th-century List of French artists, French painter, Collage, collagist, Drawing, draughtsman, printmaker and sculpture, sculptor. His most notable contributions were in his all ...
appeared almost immediately in Mondrian's work. Paintings such as ''The Sea'' (1912) and his various studies of trees from that year still contain a measure of representation, but, increasingly, they are dominated by geometric shapes and interlocking planes. While Mondrian was eager to absorb the
Cubist Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...
influence into his work, it seems clear that he saw
Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...
as a "port of call" on his artistic journey, rather than as a destination. Piet Mondrian’s Cubist period lasted from 1912 to 1917.


Netherlands (1914–1918)

Unlike the Cubists, Mondrian still attempted to reconcile his painting with his spiritual pursuits, and in 1913 he began to fuse his art and his theosophical studies into a theory that signaled his final break from representational painting. While Mondrian was visiting the Netherlands in 1914,
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
began, forcing him to remain there for the duration of the conflict. During this period, he stayed at the Laren artists' colony, where he met
Bart van der Leck Bart van der Leck (26 November 1876, Utrecht (city), Utrecht – 13 November 1958, Blaricum) was a Dutch painter, designer, and ceramicist. With Theo van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian he founded the De Stijl art movement. Son of a house painter, h ...
and
Theo van Doesburg Theo van Doesburg (, 30 August 1883 – 7 March 1931) was a Dutch artist, who practiced painting, writing, poetry and architecture. He is best known as the founder and leader of De Stijl. He was married to artist, pianist and choreographer Nelly ...
, who were both undergoing their own personal journeys toward abstraction. Van der Leck's use of only primary colors in his art greatly influenced Mondrian. After a meeting with Van der Leck in 1916, Mondrian wrote, "My technique which was more or less Cubist, and therefore more or less pictorial, came under the influence of his precise method." With Van Doesburg, Mondrian founded ''
De Stijl ''De Stijl'' (; ), Dutch for "The Style", also known as Neoplasticism, was a Dutch art movement founded in 1917 in Leiden. De Stijl consisted of artists and architects. In a more narrow sense, the term ''De Stijl'' is used to refer to a body o ...
'' (''The Style''), a journal of the De Stijl Group, in which he first published essays defining his theory, which he called neoplasticism. Mondrian published "''De Nieuwe Beelding in de schilderkunst''" ("The New Plastic in Painting"), in twelve installments during 1917 and 1918. This was his first major attempt to express his artistic theory in writing. Mondrian's best and most-often quoted expression of this theory, however, comes from a letter he wrote to H. P. Bremmer in 1914: Over the next two decades, Mondrian methodically developed his signature style embracing the Classical, Platonic, Euclidean worldview where he simply focused on his, now iconic, horizontal and vertical black lines forming squares and rectangles filled with primary hues.


Paris (1918–1938)

When
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
ended in 1918, Mondrian returned to France, where he would remain until 1938. Immersed in post-war Paris culture of artistic innovation, he flourished and fully embraced the art of pure abstraction for the rest of his life. Mondrian began producing grid-based paintings in late 1919, and in 1920, the style for which he came to be renowned began to appear. In the early paintings of this style, the lines delineating the rectangular forms are relatively thin, and they are gray, not black. The lines also tend to fade as they approach the edge of the painting, rather than stopping abruptly. The forms themselves, smaller and more numerous than in later paintings, are filled with primary colors, black, or gray, and nearly all of them are colored; only a few are left white. During late 1920 and 1921, Mondrian's paintings arrive at what is to casual observers their definitive and mature form. Thick black lines now separate the forms, which are larger and fewer in number, and more of the forms are left white. This was not the culmination of his artistic evolution, however. Although the refinements became subtler, Mondrian's work continued to evolve during his years in Paris. In the 1921 paintings, many, though not all, of the black lines stop short at a seemingly arbitrary distance from the edge of the canvas, although the divisions between the rectangular forms remain intact. Here, too, the rectangular forms remain mostly colored. As the years passed and Mondrian's work evolved further, he began extending all of the lines to the edges of the canvas, and he began to use fewer and fewer colored forms, favoring white instead. These tendencies are particularly obvious in the "lozenge" works that Mondrian began producing with regularity in the mid-1920s. The "lozenge" paintings are square canvases tilted 45 degrees, so that they have a diamond shape. Typical of these is ''Schilderij No. 1: Lozenge With Two Lines and Blue'' (1926). One of the most minimal of Mondrian's canvases, this painting consists only of two black, perpendicular lines and a small blue triangular form. The lines extend all the way to the edges of the canvas, almost giving the impression that the painting is a fragment of a larger work. Although one's view of the painting is hampered by the glass protecting it, and by the toll that age and handling have obviously taken on the canvas, a close examination of this painting begins to reveal something of the artist's method. The painting is not composed of perfectly flat planes of color, as one might expect. Subtle brush strokes are evident throughout. The artist appears to have used different techniques for the various elements. The black lines are the flattest elements, with the least depth. The colored forms have the most obvious brush strokes, all running in one direction. Most interesting, however, are the white forms, which clearly have been painted in layers, using brush strokes running in different directions. This generates a greater sense of depth in the white forms so that they appear to overwhelm the lines and the colors, which indeed they were doing, as Mondrian's paintings of this period came to be increasingly dominated by white space. In 1926,
Katherine Dreier Katherine Sophie Dreier (September 10, 1877 – March 29, 1952) was an American artist, lecturer, patron of the arts, and social reformer. Dreier developed an interest in art at a young age and was afforded the opportunity of studying art in the ...
, co-founder of New York City's
Society of Independent Artists Society of Independent Artists was an association of American artists founded in 1916 and based in New York. Background Based on the French Société des Artistes Indépendants, the goal of the society was to hold annual exhibitions by avant-gard ...
(along with
Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...
and
Man Ray Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealism, Surrealist movements, although his t ...
), visited Piet Mondrian's studio in Paris and acquired one of his diamond compositions, Painting I. This was then shown during an exhibition organized by the Society of Independent Artists in the
Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...
--the first major exhibition of modern art in America since the
Armory Show The 1913 Armory Show, also known as the International Exhibition of Modern Art, was a show organized by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors in 1913. It was the first large exhibition of modern art in America, as well as one of ...
. She stated in the catalog that "Holland has produced three great painters who, though a logical expression of their own country, rose above it through the vigor of their personality – the first was
Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally consid ...
, the second was
Van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inclu ...
, and the third is Mondrian." As the years progressed, lines began to take precedence over forms in Mondrian's paintings. In the 1930s, he began to use thinner lines and double lines more frequently, punctuated with a few small colored forms, if any at all. Double lines particularly excited Mondrian, for he believed they offered his paintings a new dynamism which he was eager to explore. The introduction of the double line in his work was influenced by the work of his friend and contemporary
Marlow Moss Marjorie Jewel "Marlow" Moss (29 May 1889 – 23 August 1958) was a British Constructivist artist who worked in painting and sculpture. Biography Moss was born on 29 May 1889 in Kilburn in London. She was the daughter of Lionel and Fannie Moss ...
. From 1934 to 1935, three of Mondrian's paintings were exhibited as part of the "Abstract and Concrete" exhibitions in the UK at Oxford, London, and Liverpool.


London and New York (1938–1944)

In September 1938, Mondrian left Paris in the face of advancing
fascism Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy an ...
and moved to London. After the Netherlands was invaded and Paris fell in 1940, he left London for
Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
in New York City, where he would remain until his death. Some of Mondrian's later works are difficult to place in terms of his artistic development because there were quite a few canvases that he began in Paris or London and only completed months or years later in Manhattan. The finished works from this later period are visually busy, with more lines than any of his work since the 1920s, placed in an overlapping arrangement that is almost cartographical in appearance. He spent many long hours painting on his own until his hands blistered, and he sometimes cried or made himself sick. Mondrian produced ''Lozenge Composition With Four Yellow Lines'' (1933), a simple painting that innovated thick, colored lines instead of black ones. After that one painting, this practice remained dormant in Mondrian's work until he arrived in Manhattan, at which time he began to embrace it with abandon. In some examples of this new direction, such as ''Composition'' (1938) / ''Place de la Concorde'' (1943), he appears to have taken unfinished black-line paintings from Paris and completed them in New York by adding short perpendicular lines of different colors, running between the longer black lines, or from a black line to the edge of the canvas. The newly colored areas are thick, almost bridging the gap between lines and forms, and it is startling to see color in a Mondrian painting that is unbounded by black. Other works mix long lines of red amidst the familiar black lines, creating a new sense of depth by the addition of a colored layer on top of the black one. His painting ''Composition No. 10'', 1939–1942, characterized by primary colors, white ground and black grid lines clearly defined Mondrian's radical but classical approach to the rectangle. On 23 September 1940 Mondrian left Europe for New York aboard the Cunard White Star Line ship , departing from Liverpool. The new canvases that Mondrian began in Manhattan are even more startling, and indicate the beginning of a new idiom that was cut short by the artist's death. ''
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
'' (1942) is a complex lattice of red, blue, and yellow lines, occasionally interlacing to create a greater sense of depth than his previous works. An unfinished 1941 version of this work, titled ''New York City I'', uses strips of painted paper tape, which the artist could rearrange at will to experiment with different designs. In October 2022 it was revealed that the work, which was first displayed at the
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
(MoMA) in New York in 1945, had been displayed upside down, since at least 1980, at the
Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen The Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen is the art collection of the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia, in Düsseldorf. United by this institution are three different exhibition venues: the ''K20'' at Grabbeplatz, the ''K21'' in the ...
in Germany, where it is now held. The gallery explained that it would continue to display it the wrong way up to avoid damaging it. His painting ''
Broadway Boogie-Woogie ''Broadway Boogie Woogie'' is a painting by Piet Mondrian completed in 1943, after he had moved to New York in 1940. Compared to his earlier work, the canvas is divided into many more squares. Although he spent most of his career creating abstract ...
'' (1942–43) at the Museum of Modern Art was highly influential in the school of abstract geometric painting. The piece is made up of a number of shimmering squares of bright color that leap from the canvas, then appear to shimmer, drawing the viewer into those neon lights. In this painting and the unfinished ''
Victory Boogie Woogie ''Victory Boogie Woogie'' is the last, unfinished work, unfinished work of the Dutch abstract painter Piet Mondrian, left incomplete when Mondrian died in New York in 1944. Since 1998 it has been in the collection of the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, K ...
'' (1942–1944), Mondrian replaced former solid lines with lines created from small adjoining rectangles of color, created in part by using small pieces of paper tape in various colors. Larger unbounded rectangles of color punctuate the design, some with smaller concentric rectangles inside them. While Mondrian's works of the 1920s and 1930s tend to have an almost scientific austerity about them, these are bright, lively paintings, reflecting the upbeat music that inspired them and the city in which they were made. In these final works, the forms have indeed usurped the role of the lines, opening another new door for Mondrian's development as an abstractionist. The ''Boogie-Woogie'' paintings were clearly more of a revolutionary change than an evolutionary one, representing the most profound development in Mondrian's work since his abandonment of representational art in 1913. In 2008 the Dutch television program ''
Andere Tijden ''Andere Tijden'' (''Other''/''Different Times'') is a history programme on Dutch television of the NTR and VPRO. There is also a version of the programme called ''Andere Tijden Sport'', which shows programmes about sports history. ''Andere Tijden ...
'' found the only known movie footage with Mondrian. The discovery of the film footage was announced at the end of a two-year research program on the ''Victory Boogie Woogie''. The research found that the painting was in very good condition and that Mondrian painted the composition in one session. It also was found that the composition was changed radically by Mondrian shortly before his death by using small pieces of colored tape.


Wall works

When the 47-year-old Piet Mondrian left the Netherlands for unfettered Paris for the second and last time in 1919, he set about at once to make his studio a nurturing environment for paintings he had in mind that would increasingly express the principles of
neoplasticism Neoplasticism, known in Dutch as ''Nieuwe Beelding'' or the new image, is an avant-garde art theory that arose in 1917 and was employed mainly by Dutch De Stijl artists. The most notable advocates of the theory were the painters Theo van Does ...
about which he had been writing for two years. To hide the studio's structural flaws quickly and inexpensively, he tacked up large rectangular placards, each in a single color or neutral hue. Smaller colored paper squares and rectangles, composed together, accented the walls. Then came an intense period of painting. Again he addressed the walls, repositioning the colored cutouts, adding to their number, altering the dynamics of color and space, producing new tensions and equilibrium. Before long, he had established a creative schedule in which a period of painting took turns with a period of experimentally regrouping the smaller papers on the walls, a process that directly fed the next period of painting. It was a pattern he followed for the rest of his life, through wartime moves from Paris to London's Hampstead in 1938 and 1940, across the Atlantic to Manhattan. At the age of 71 in the fall of 1943, Mondrian moved into his second and final Manhattan studio at 15 East 59th Street, and set about to recreate the environment he had learned over the years was most congenial to his modest way of life and most stimulating to his art. He painted the high walls the same off-white he used on his easel and on the seats, tables and storage cases he designed and fashioned meticulously from discarded orange and apple-crates. He glossed the top of a white metal stool in the same brilliant primary red he applied to the cardboard sheath he made for the radio-phonograph that spilled forth his beloved
jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
from well-traveled records. Visitors to this last studio seldom saw more than one or two new canvases, but found, often to their astonishment, that eight large compositions of colored bits of paper he had tacked and re-tacked to the walls in ever-changing relationships constituted together an environment that, paradoxically and simultaneously, was both kinetic and serene, stimulating and restful. It was the best space, Mondrian said, that he had inhabited. He was there for only a few months, as he died in February 1944. After his death, Mondrian's friend and sponsor in Manhattan, artist
Harry Holtzman Harry Holtzman (June 8, 1912 – September 25, 1987) was an American artist and founding member of the American Abstract Artists group. Early life At the age of fourteen, Holtzman visited the ''Société Anonyme’s'' 1926 “International E ...
, and another painter friend,
Fritz Glarner Fritz Glarner (July 20, 1899 in Zurich – September 18, 1972 in Locarno) was a Swiss-American painter. Glarner was a leading proponent of so-called Concrete Art, an artists' movement whose roots lead back to the painters of De Stijl and ...
, carefully documented the studio on film and in still photographs before opening it to the public for a six-week exhibition. Before dismantling the studio, Holtzman (who was also Mondrian's heir) traced the wall compositions precisely, prepared exact portable facsimiles of the space each had occupied, and affixed to each the original surviving cut-out components. These portable Mondrian compositions have become known as "The Wall Works". Since Mondrian's death, they have been exhibited twice at Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art (1983 and 1995–96), once in
SoHo Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develop ...
at the Carpenter + Hochman Gallery (1984), once each at the Galerie Tokoro in
Tokyo, Japan Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...
(1993), the XXII Biennial of
Sao Paulo SAO or Sao may refer to: Places * Sao civilisation, in Middle Africa from 6th century BC to 16th century AD * Sao, a town in Boussé Department, Burkina Faso * Saco Transportation Center (station code SAO), a train station in Saco, Maine, U.S ...
(1994), the
University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
(1995), and – the first time shown in Europe – at the
Akademie der Künste The Academy of Arts (german: Akademie der Künste) is a state arts institution in Berlin, Germany. The task of the Academy is to promote art, as well as to advise and support the states of Germany. The Academy's predecessor organization was fo ...
(Academy of The Arts), in Berlin (22 February – 22 April 2007). His work was also shown in a retrospective exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery in London, which ran from August – September 1955.


Death and legacy

Piet Mondrian died of pneumonia on 1 February 1944 and was interred at the
Cypress Hills Cemetery Cypress Hills Cemetery is non-sectarian/non-denominational cemetery corporation organized in the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens in New York City, the first of its type in the city. The cemetery is run as a non-profit organization and is loca ...
in
Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
. On 3 February 1944 a memorial was held for Mondrian at the Universal Chapel on
Lexington Avenue Lexington Avenue, often colloquially abbreviated as "Lex", is an avenue on the East Side of the borough of Manhattan in New York City that carries southbound one-way traffic from East 131st Street to Gramercy Park at East 21st Street. Along it ...
and 52nd Street in
Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
. The service was attended by nearly 200 people including
Alexander Archipenko Alexander Porfyrovych Archipenko (also referred to as Olexandr, Oleksandr, or Aleksandr; uk, Олександр Порфирович Архипенко, Romanized: Olexandr Porfyrovych Arkhypenko; February 25, 1964) was a Ukrainian and American ...
,
Marc Chagall Marc Chagall; russian: link=no, Марк Заха́рович Шага́л ; be, Марк Захаравіч Шагал . (born Moishe Shagal; 28 March 1985) was a Russian-French artist. An early modernism, modernist, he was associated with se ...
,
Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...
,
Fernand Léger Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painting, painter, sculpture, sculptor, and film director, filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as "tubism") which he gradually ...
,
Alexander Calder Alexander Calder (; July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976) was an American sculptor known both for his innovative mobiles (kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents) that embrace chance in their aesthetic, his static "stabiles", and his ...
and
Robert Motherwell Robert Motherwell (January 24, 1915 – July 16, 1991) was an American Abstract Expressionism, abstract expressionist Painting, painter, printmaker, and editor of ''The Dada Painters and Poets: an Anthology''. He was one of the youngest of th ...
. The Mondrian / Holtzman Trust functions as Mondrian's official estate, and "aims to promote awareness of Mondrian's artwork and to ensure the integrity of his work". Mondrian was described by critic Robert Hughes, in his 1980 book ''The Shock of the New'', as "one of the supreme artists of the 20th century." Likewise in his television documentaries of ''
The Shock of the New ''The Shock of the New'' is an eight-part documentary television series about the development of modern art written and presented in 1980 by Robert Hughes for the BBC, in association with Time-Life Films. It was produced by Lorna Pegram, who als ...
'', Hughes referred to Mondrian considered again as "one of the greatest artists of the 20th century (...) who was one of the last painters who believed that the conditions of human life could be changed by making pictures". Dutch art historian
Carel Blotkamp Carel Hendrik Blotkamp (born 1945) is a Dutch artist, art historian, writer and critic. He was a professor at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam between 1982 and 2007. Apart from his academic career Blotkamp is known for his work in art critique, wri ...
, an authority on
De Stijl ''De Stijl'' (; ), Dutch for "The Style", also known as Neoplasticism, was a Dutch art movement founded in 1917 in Leiden. De Stijl consisted of artists and architects. In a more narrow sense, the term ''De Stijl'' is used to refer to a body o ...
, reaffirmed the same belief that he was "one of the great artists of the twentieth century". On November 14 2022, Mondrian's ''Composition No. II'' was sold at Sotheby's Auction for US $51 million, which beat a previous record of US $50.6 million for his work. ''Composition No. II'' features a 20-inch by 20-inch canvas with a large red square in the upper right corner, a small blue square in the bottom left corner, and a yellow block with all outlined by black.


Claims for Nazi looted art

In October 2020, Mondrian's heirs filed a lawsuit in a U.S. court against the
Kaiser Wilhelm Museum ''Kaiser'' is the German word for "emperor" (female Kaiserin). In general, the German title in principle applies to rulers anywhere in the world above the rank of king (''König''). In English, the (untranslated) word ''Kaiser'' is mainly ap ...
in Krefeld, Germany for the return of four paintings by Mondrian. In December 2021, Mondrian's heirs sued the
Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...
for the return of Mondrian's ''Composition with Blue'' (1928) which had been seized by the Nazis, and passed through the art dealers
Karl Buchholz Karl Buchholz (23 February 1849, Schloßvippach - 29 May 1889 in Oberweimar)B ...
and
Curt Valentin Curt Valentin (5 October 1902, Hamburg, Germany – 19 August 1954, Forte dei Marmi, Italy) was a German-Jewish art dealer known for handling modern art, particularly sculpture, and works classified as "degenerate" and stolen from European museums b ...
before being gifted to the museum by Albert E. Gallatin.


References in culture

* The
National Museum of Serbia The National Museum of Serbia ( sr, / ) is the largest and oldest museum in Belgrade, Serbia. It is located in the central zone of Belgrade on a square plot between the Republic Square, formerly Theatre Square, and three streets: Čika Ljubina ...
was the first museum to include one of Mondrian's paintings in its permanent exhibition. * Along with
Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented wi ...
and
Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (; rus, Василий Васильевич Кандинский, Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy, vɐˈsʲilʲɪj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kɐnʲˈdʲinskʲɪj;  – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter a ...
, Mondrian was one of the main inspirations to the early
pointillist Pointillism (, ) is a technique of painting in which small, distinct dots of color are applied in patterns to form an image. Georges Seurat and Paul Signac developed the technique in 1886, branching from Impressionism. The term "Pointillism" wa ...
musical aesthetic of serialist composer
Pierre Boulez Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war Western classical music. Born in Mont ...
, although his interest in Mondrian was restricted to the works of 1914–15. By May 1949 Boulez said he was "suspicious of Mondrian", and by December 1951 expressed a dislike for his paintings (regarding them as "the most denuded of mystery that have ever been in the world"), and a strong preference for Klee. * In the 1930s, the French fashion designer
Lola Prusac Lola Prusac (18 January 1895 – 29 October 1985) was a Polish-born French fashion designer noted for her inventive and original way of dressing, who worked for Hermès in Paris between 1925 and 1935. She was first "with the unusual position of c ...
, who worked at that time for
Hermès Hermès International S.A., or simply Hermès ( , ), is a French luxury design house established in 1837. It specializes in leather goods, lifestyle accessories, home furnishings, perfumery, jewelry, watches and ready-to-wear. Its logo, since ...
in Paris, designed a range of luggage and bags inspired by the latest works of Mondrian: inlays of red, blue, and yellow leather squares. * Fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent's Fall 1965 Mondrian collection featured shift dresses in blocks of primary color with black bordering, inspired by Mondrian. The collection proved so popular that it inspired a range of imitations that encompassed garments from coats to boots. * The 1970–1974 American television serial ''
The Partridge Family ''The Partridge Family'' is an American musical sitcom starring Shirley Jones and featuring David Cassidy. Jones plays a widowed mother, and Cassidy plays the oldest of her five children, in a family who embarks on a music career. It ran from Se ...
'' featured a musical family who purchase an (already-old at the time) 1957
Chevrolet Chevrolet ( ), colloquially referred to as Chevy and formally the Chevrolet Motor Division of General Motors Company, is an American automobile division of the American manufacturer General Motors (GM). Louis Chevrolet (1878–1941) and ous ...
Superior Coach Series 6800 school bus for use as their tour bus, and then repaint it in a colored geometric pattern heavily inspired by Mondrian's grid-based paintings. The reason for this choice of pattern is never discussed in the TV series. * The
La Vie Claire La Vie Claire was a professional road bicycle racing team named after its chief sponsor La Vie Claire, a chain of health food stores. History The La Vie Claire team was created in 1984 by Bernard Tapie and directed by Paul Köchli. The tea ...
cycling team's bicycles and clothing designs were inspired by Mondrian's work throughout the 1980s. The French ski and bicycle equipment manufacturer Look, which also sponsored the team, used a Mondrian-inspired logo for a while. The style was revived in 2008 for a limited edition frame. * 1980s R&B group
Force MDs The Force M.D.'s are an American contemporary R&B, R&B vocal group that was formed in 1981 in Staten Island, New York. Although the group has old school hip hop roots, it is perhaps best known for two tunes that are widely considered 1980s quiet ...
created a
music video A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a m ...
for their hit "Love is a House", superimposing themselves performing inside of digitally drawn squares inspired by ''Composition II''. * Piet is an
esoteric programming language An esoteric programming language (sometimes shortened to esolang) is a programming language designed to test the boundaries of computer programming language design, as a proof of concept, as software art, as a hacking interface to another language ...
named after Piet Mondrian in which programs look like abstract art. * Mondrian is a software for interactive data visualization named after him. * Mondrian is a
functional Functional may refer to: * Movements in architecture: ** Functionalism (architecture) ** Form follows function * Functional group, combination of atoms within molecules * Medical conditions without currently visible organic basis: ** Functional sy ...
scripting language A scripting language or script language is a programming language that is used to manipulate, customize, and automate the facilities of an existing system. Scripting languages are usually interpreted at runtime rather than compiled. A scripting ...
designed by
Microsoft Research Microsoft Research (MSR) is the research subsidiary of Microsoft. It was created in 1991 by Richard Rashid, Bill Gates and Nathan Myhrvold with the intent to advance state-of-the-art computing and solve difficult world problems through technologi ...
for the .NET platform. * Mondrian is a web-based
code review Code review (sometimes referred to as peer review) is a software quality assurance activity in which one or several people check a program mainly by viewing and reading parts of its source code, and they do so after implementation or as an interru ...
system written in
Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (pro ...
and used within
Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
. * Mondrian is an
open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
OLAP Online analytical processing, or OLAP (), is an approach to answer multi-dimensional analytical (MDA) queries swiftly in computing. OLAP is part of the broader category of business intelligence, which also encompasses relational databases, repor ...
(online analytical processing)
server Server may refer to: Computing *Server (computing), a computer program or a device that provides functionality for other programs or devices, called clients Role * Waiting staff, those who work at a restaurant or a bar attending customers and su ...
written in
Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...
. * An episode of the BBC TV drama '' Hustle'' entitled "Picture Perfect" is about the team attempting to create and sell a Mondrian forgery. To do so, they must steal a real Mondrian (''
Composition with Red, Yellow, Blue, and Black Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature *Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography *Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include v ...
'', 1921) from an art gallery. *In 2001–2003 British artist
Keith Milow Keith Milow (born 29 December 1945 in London) is a British artist. He grew up in Baldock, Hertfordshire, and lived in New York City (1980–2002) and Amsterdam (2002–2014), now lives in London. He is an abstract sculptor, painter and printmak ...
made a series of paintings based on the so-called ''Transatlantic Paintings'' (1935–1940) by Mondrian. *
The Mondrian The Mondrian, designed by famed Dallas architect Thomas Brink, is a 20-story high-rise located at 3000 Blackburn Street in the Cityplace neighborhood of Oak Lawn, Dallas, Texas, United States.
is a 20-story high-rise in the Cityplace neighborhood of Oak Lawn,
Dallas, Texas Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County w ...
, US. Construction started on the structure in 2003 and the building was completed in 2005. * In 2008,
Nike Nike often refers to: * Nike (mythology), a Greek goddess who personifies victory * Nike, Inc., a major American producer of athletic shoes, apparel, and sports equipment Nike may also refer to: People * Nike (name), a surname and feminine give ...
released a pair of Dunk Low SB shoes inspired by Mondrian's iconic neo-plastic paintings. * The front cover to Australian rock band
Silverchair Silverchair were an Australian Rock music, rock band, which formed in 1992 as Innocent Criminals in Newcastle, New South Wales, with Ben Gillies on drums, Daniel Johns on vocals and guitars, and Chris Joannou on bass guitar. The group got thei ...
's fifth and final album ''
Young Modern ''Young Modern'' is the fifth and final studio album by Australian alternative rock band Silverchair, released on 31 March 2007 and co-produced by Daniel Johns and Nick Launay. The title comes from a nickname given to Daniel Johns by composer ...
'' (2007) is a tribute to Piet Mondrian's ''Composition II in Red, Blue, and Yellow''. * The cover art of American psychedelic pop indie rock band
The Apples in Stereo The Apples in Stereo, styled as The Apples in stereo, are an American pop/rock band associated with Elephant 6 Collective, a group of bands also including Neutral Milk Hotel, The Olivia Tremor Control, Elf Power, Of Montreal, and Circulatory Sy ...
's second album, ''
Tone Soul Evolution ''Tone Soul Evolution'' is the second album from The Apples in Stereo. It was recorded from February to June and released in September 1997. The vinyl edition of the album was released with a bonus 7" that included the songs "Man You Gotta Get ...
'' (1997), was inspired by Piet Mondrian. * The character
Data In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted ...
in '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' has a copy of ''Tableau 1'' in his quarters. * An episode of
Arthur Arthur is a common male given name of Brittonic languages, Brythonic origin. Its popularity derives from it being the name of the legendary hero King Arthur. The etymology is disputed. It may derive from the Celtic ''Artos'' meaning “Bear”. An ...
involved a painting resembling Mondrian's works being displayed sideways in a museum, which was fixed after Binky Barnes pointed out the error to art experts. * The mathematics book ''An Introduction to Sparse Stochastic Processes'' by M.Unser and P.Tafti uses a representation of a stochastic process called the Mondrian process for its cover, which is named because of its resemblance to Piet Mondrian artworks. *
The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...
City Council honored Mondrian by adorning walls of City Hall with reproductions of his works and describing it as "the largest Mondrian painting in the world." The event celebrated the 100th year of the Stijl movement which Mondrian helped to found. * The Jersey Surf Drum & Bugle Corps performed a show based on Piet Mondrian in their 2018 production titled ondo mondrian * In collaboration with the
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum The Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum (in Spanish, the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza (), named after its founder), or simply the Thyssen, is an art museum in Madrid, Spain, located near the Prado Museum on one of the city's main boulevards. I ...
in
Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...
,
Swatch Swatch is a Swiss watchmaker founded in 1983 by Ernst Thomke, Elmar Mock, and Jacques Müller. It is a subsidiary of The Swatch Group. The Swatch product line was developed as a response to the "quartz crisis" of the 1970s and 1980s, in which i ...
created a watch called the "Red Shiny Line (SUOZ297)" which pays tribute to Mondrian's "New York City, 3". This was followed in 2022 by the watch "RED, BLUE AND WHITE, BY PIET MONDRIAN (SUOZ344)" which celebrates the painting ''Composition in Red, Blue and White II'' as part of a collaboration between Swatch and
Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...
. *
Chun Yeung Estate Chun Yeung Estate () is a public housing estate in Fo Tan, New Territories, Hong Kong. It is the only public housing estate in Fo Tan, located at the junction of Wong Chuk Yeung Street and Kwei Tei Street. It comprises 5 blocks and 1 shopping c ...
is the only public housing estate in Fo Tan,
Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
. Its name prefix "Chun" means "
horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million y ...
" in English since
Sha Tin Racecourse Sha Tin Racecourse is one of the two racecourses for horse racing in Hong Kong. It is located in Sha Tin District, Sha Tin in the New Territories. It is managed by Hong Kong Jockey Club. Penfold Park is encircled by the track, and the Hon ...
is located in Fo Tan. It was completed in 2019. According to the
Housing Department Housing Department (房屋署) is a department of Hong Kong Government and is the executive arm of the Hong Kong Housing Authority , managing public housing estates which is a statutory organisation tasked to develop and implement a public ...
's architectural project team, the building facades and design details of Chun Yeung Estate was inspired by geometric elements from Mondrian's work. * In 2021, LH Games released a video game inspired by the works of Piet Mondrian entitled ''Mondrian Squares''. * The
Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
Stub template ''20C-painting-stub'' uses ''Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow'' for the icon.


Commemoration

From 6 June to 5 October 2014, the
Tate Liverpool Tate Liverpool is an art gallery and museum in Liverpool, Merseyside, England, and part of Tate, along with Tate St Ives, Cornwall, Tate Britain, London, and Tate Modern, London. The museum was an initiative of the Merseyside Development Corpo ...
displayed the largest UK collection of Mondrian's works, in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of his death. ''Mondrian and his Studios'' included a life-size reconstruction of his Paris studio. Charles Darwent, in ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', wrote: "With its black floor and white walls hung with moveable panels of red, yellow and blue, the studio at Rue du Départ was not just a place for making Mondrians. It was a Mondrian – and a generator of Mondrians." He has been described as "the world’s greatest abstract geometrist".


See also

*
Fourth dimension in art New possibilities opened up by the concept of four-dimensional space (and difficulties involved in trying to visualize it) helped inspire many modern artists in the first half of the twentieth century. Early Cubists, Surrealists, Futurists, and ...
*
List of refugees This is a list of prominent people who fled their native country, went into exile and found refuge in another country. The list follows the current legal concept of refugee only loosely. It also includes children of people who have fled. The peopl ...
* List of claims for restitution of Nazi-looted art * Mondrian and Theosophy *
Piet (programming language) An esoteric programming language (sometimes shortened to esolang) is a programming language designed to test the boundaries of computer programming language design, as a proof of concept, as software art, as a hacking interface to another language ...


Notes


References

* Apollonio, Umbro (1970). ''Piet Mondrian'', Milano: Fabri 1976. * Bax, Marty (2001). ''Complete Mondrian''. Aldershot (Hampshire) and Burlington (Vermont): Lund Humphries. (cloth) (pbk). * * * * * * * * Larousse and Co., Inc. (1976). Mondrian, Piet. In Dictionary of Painters (p. 285). New York: Larousse and Co., Inc. * Hajdu, István (1987). ''Piet Mondrian''. Pantheon. Budapest: Corvina Kiadó. . * Faerna, José María (ed.) (1997). ''Mondrian'' Great Modern Masters. New York: Cameo/
Abrams Abrams may refer to: * Abrams (surname), a list of notable people with the surname * '' Abrams v. United States'', 250 U.S. 616 (1919), U.S. Supreme Court decision regarding free speech during times of war * M1 Abrams, main battle tank * Abrams, W ...
. . * * * Gooding, Mel (2001). ''Abstract Art''. Movements in Modern Art. London: Tate Publishing; Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. (Tate); (Cambridge, cloth); (Cambridge, pbk). * * * * * Janssen, Hans (2008). ''Mondriaan in het Gemeentemuseum Den Haag''. he Hague Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. * Locher, Hans (1994) ''Piet Mondrian: Colour, Structure, and Symbolism: An Essay''. Bern: Verlag Gachnang & Springer. * * * * Mondrian, Piet (1986). ''The New Art – The New Life: The Collected Writings of Piet Mondrian'', edited by
Harry Holtzman Harry Holtzman (June 8, 1912 – September 25, 1987) was an American artist and founding member of the American Abstract Artists group. Early life At the age of fourteen, Holtzman visited the ''Société Anonyme’s'' 1926 “International E ...
and Martin S. James. Documents of 20th-Century Art. Boston: G. K. Hall and Co. . Reprinted 1987, London: Thames and Hudson. . Reprinted 1993, New York: Da Capo Press. . * Schapiro, Meyer (1995). ''Mondrian: On the Humanity of Abstract Painting''. New York: George Braziller. (cloth) (pbk). * * * * * Welsh, Robert P., Joop J. Joosten, and Henk Scheepmaker (1998). ''Piet Mondrian: Catalogue Raisonné'', translated by Jacques Bosser. Blaricum: V+K Publishing/Inmerc. *


Further reading

*


External links

*
Mondrian Trust
– the holder of reproduction rights to Mondrian's works * Piet Mondrian Papers. General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
RKD and Gemeentemuseum Den Haag website
– functions as a portal to information on the life and work of Mondrian * Many sourced quotes of Piet Mondrian and biography-facts i
''De Stijl 1917–1931 – The Dutch Contribution to Modern Art'', by H. L. C. Jaffé.
J. M. Meulenhoff, Amsterdam 1956.
Piet Mondrian: The Transatlantic Paintings
at harvardartmuseums.org
Mondrian collection
at Guggenheim, New York {{DEFAULTSORT:Mondrian, Pieter 1872 births 1944 deaths Abstract painters Modern painters De Stijl Dutch expatriates in France Dutch expatriates in the United States Dutch male painters People from Amersfoort School of Paris Burials at Cypress Hills Cemetery Deaths from pneumonia in New York City 19th-century Dutch artists 20th-century Dutch artists 19th-century Dutch painters 20th-century Dutch painters Dutch Theosophists