Piet Mondrian

by David Beaulieu June 10, 2021

7 things you never knew about one of the greatest Dutch painters in history.

Born in 1872 in Amersfoort, Netherlands , Piet Mondrian is considered a pioneer of 20th-century abstract art.

Born in 1872 in Amersfoort, Netherlands , Piet Mondrian is considered a pioneer of 20th-century abstract art.

Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow, 1929, from the National Museum of Belgrade in Serbia

He co-founded a movement: De Stijl . He was a contributor to the De Stijl (The Style) art movement and group, which he co-founded with Theo van Doesburg. Also known as Neoplasticism , this Dutch art movement advocated pure abstraction by a reduction to the essentials of form and color . Artists simplified visual compositions to vertical and horizontal, using only black, white and primary colors.

Field with Trees, at Dusk , 1907, from the Kunstmuseum Den Haag.

His work was not always abstract. In his early career, he painted many pastoral images of his native country including windmills, fields and rivers. Later, he would paint more vivid work inspired by pointillism (small dots) and fauvism (bright colors).

The missing “A”. 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 to the Parisian avant-garde.

He got sick…really sick . He contracted the Spanish flu in 1918. His symptoms persisted for months. But he would continue to work on his paintings , as he wrote to a friend: “While I have had the flu I have noticed how concentrated one unwillingly becomes, and that the work is the better for it.”

He loved dancing. He was obsessed with it. He took dance classes all throughout his life. He was obsessed with the “Charleston” , a popular dance movement in the United States during the 1920s, named after the city in South Carolina.