Mondrian - New York City

Along with the Russians Kandinsky and Malevich, Pieter-Cornelis Mondriaan (1872-1944), known as Piet Mondrian, was one of the first painters to express himself using an abstract graphic language. His early works show a clear interest in nature and light. The transition to abstraction and the geometrization of forms was very gradual in his work. From 1920 onwards, he limited the use of primary colours: yellow, red and blue. Mondrian would be an important contributor to the magazine De Stijl and a leading figure in the movement.

"New York City" (1942), from a series of 4 paintings, is a canvas made up of a set of vertical and horizontal bands of pure colors (yellow, red, blue) crossing from edge to edge on a white background. The wide ribbons, all in flat tints, cut the four red lines and the four blue lines, which in turn pass over the yellow ones at a few points, all in a non-figurative style giving an "impression of trompe l'oeil" (Seuphor, 1970). This grid of colors evokes in an abstract way the great New York avenues.

© ADAGP 2010 / Centre Pompidou