Piet Mondrian

Broadway Boogie Woogie — pure abstraction in red, blue, yellow

The purest of the abstract pioneers and co-founder of De Stijl. Mondrian moved from naturalistic Dutch landscapes through Cubism to a radically reduced vocabulary — black grids, white grounds, and the three primary colours — which he called Neoplasticism. He believed this distilled geometry expressed a universal harmony beneath appearances. His late New York paintings, above all Broadway Boogie Woogie, set that grid pulsing with the rhythm of the modern city.

Key works

• Broadway Boogie Woogie1943— The grid set dancing to the rhythm of Manhattan
  Museum of Modern Art, New York
• Composition with Red, Blue and Yellow1930— Neoplasticism at its most distilled
  Kunsthaus Zurich
• Tableau I1921— The mature grid takes form
  Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Connections

External