CATALOGUE
Mondrian Evolution
EDITED BY
Ulf Küster für die Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel
TEXTS BY
Benno Tempel, Caro Verbeek,
Ulf Küster, Kathrin Beßen,
Susanne Meyer-Büser,
Charlotte Sarrazin and Bridget Riley
DESIGN BY
Irma Boom
264 pp, 308 ills.
265 x 215 mm
Paperback with Flaps
CHF 58.–, € 54.–
978-3-7757-5236-7 (German)
978-3-7757-5237-4 (English)
Publication date: 13.06.2022
Description
Piet Mondrian had a decisive influence on the development of painting from figuration to abstraction. On the occasion of his 150th birthday, Mondrian Evolution is dedicated to his multifaceted work and artistic development. Initially working in the tradition of late-nineteenth century Dutch landscape painting, Symbolism and Cubism subsequently took on great significance for him. It was not until the early 1920s that the artist focused on a wholly non-representational pictorial vocabulary, concentrated on the rectangular arrangement of black lines with surfaces in white and the primary colors blue, red, and yellow. In separate chapters, this path is traced through motifs such as windmills, dunes, the sea, farms reflected in the water, and plants in various forms of abstraction.
Biography
PIET MONDRIAN (1872–1944) was one of the pioneers of abstract art. Hailing from a strict Calvinist family, the artist became famous for his compositions of black lines and rectangular fields in primary colors, but his early work was influenced by 19th century Dutch landscape painting.
Link to The eponymous exhibition article on Patrons