Creator story
Surprising fact
A passionate dancer, Mondrian celebrated jazz and New York in his last work, the syncopated Broadway Boogie Woogie.
Source: Wikipedia / WikimediaAvant-Garde
Piet Mondrian
Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) reduced painting to its purest elements — straight black lines, white space and blocks of primary colour. His rigorous grids became one of the defining images of modern art and design.
Mondrian's De Stijl grids shaped modern architecture, graphic design and fashion for a century.
- Co-founded De Stijl, the movement of pure line, plane and primary colour.
- Limited his palette to red, yellow, blue, black and white.
- His grids still echo in logos, buildings and fashion today.
Key works
Two works that open the world of Piet Mondrian
These works make it easiest to see how the artist changed form, content, and the very way art could exist in culture.
1942
Broadway Boogie Woogie
Broadway Boogie Woogie is an oil on canvas painting by Piet Mondrian, completed in 1943, after he had moved to New York in 1940.
1930
Composition II in Red, Blue, and Yellow
Composition II in Red, Blue, and Yellow condenses the core ideas of avant-garde into a memorable painted image.