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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 Nell ...
. 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 (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 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 Twentieth-century art—and what it became as modern art—began with modernism in the late nineteenth century. Overview Nineteenth-century movements of Post-Impressionism (Les Nabis), Art Nouveau and Symbolism led to the first twentieth-century ...
, 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 ...
), but also fields outside the domain of painting, such as 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 buildings ...
and fashion. Design historian Stephen Bayley said: "Mondrian has come to mean Modernism. 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 secon ...
, province of Utrecht in the Netherlands, the second of his parents' children. He was descended from Christian Dirkzoon Monderyan who lived in The Hague 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 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 of the Hague School of artists), the younger Piet often painted and drew along the river Gein. After a strict Protestant upbringing, in 1892, Mondrian entered the Academy for Fine Art in Amsterdam. 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. 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 landscapes. 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 depic ...
images of his native country depict
windmill A windmill is a structure that converts wind power into rotational energy using vanes called sails or blades, specifically to mill grain (gristmills), but the term is also extended to windpumps, wind turbines, and other applications, in some p ...
s, fields, and rivers, 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 ...
and the vivid colors of Fauvism. In 1893 he had his first exhibition. On display in the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag 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 aga ...
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. 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 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'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'' 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. 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 triangles and rectangles.


Paris (1911–1914)

In 1911, Mondrian moved to Paris 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 D ...
. 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 and Georges Braque 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 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 – 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, he started his c ...
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 Nell ...
, 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 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 and Man Ray), 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 ...
--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 consi ...
, the second was Van Gogh, 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 and moved to London. After the Netherlands was invaded and Paris fell in 1940, he left London for Manhattan 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'' (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 th ...
(MoMA) in New York in 1945, had been displayed upside down, since at least 1980, at the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen 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'' (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'' (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 The VPRO (stylized vpro; originally an acronym for , ) is a Dutch public broadcaster, which forms a part of the Dutch public ...
'' 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 Do ...
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 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 t ...
, 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 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 largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...
(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. ...
(1994), the University of Michigan (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 ...
(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 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, beh ...
. 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. 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, Marcel Duchamp,
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. 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 ...
'', 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 in Krefeld, Germany for the return of four paintings by Mondrian. In December 2021, Mondrian's heirs sued the Philadelphia Museum of Art 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 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 (Belgrade), Republic Square, formerly Theatre Square, and th ...
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 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 Mon ...
, 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, who worked at that time for Hermès 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 S ...
'' featured a musical family who purchase an (already-old at the time) 1957 Chevrolet 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 cycling team, team named after its chief Sponsor (commercial), sponsor La Vie Claire (company), La Vie Claire, a chain of health food Retailing, stores. History The La Vie Claire team was c ...
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 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 storm classics, ...
created a music video 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 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 scriptin ...
designed by Microsoft Research for the .NET platform. * Mondrian is a web-based code review 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 (pr ...
and used within Google. * Mondrian is an open source OLAP (online analytical processing) server written in Java. * 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'', 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 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 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 their big brea ...
's fifth and final album '' Young Modern'' (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 ...
's second album, '' Tone Soul Evolution'' (1997), was inspired by Piet Mondrian. * The character Data 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 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”. Another theory, more w ...
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 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 in Madrid,
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 ...
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 ...
is the only public housing estate in Fo Tan, Hong Kong. Its name prefix "Chun" means " horse" 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 in the New Territories. It is managed by Hong Kong Jockey Club. Penfold Park is encircled by the track, and the Hong Kong Sports In ...
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 The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, commonly known as the Hong Kong Government or HKSAR Government, refers to the executive authorities ...
'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 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 Corp ...
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'', 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 *
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. . * * * 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