Volume 42, Number 11 · June 22, 1995
Mysteries of Mondrian
By John Golding
Piet Mondrian: 1872–1944 Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, June 11–September 4, 1995; and The Museum of Modern Art, New York, October 1, 1995–January 23, 1996
an exhibition at the Haags Gemeentemuseum, The Hague; The National
Piet Mondrian
catalog of the exhibition by Yve-Alain Bois, by Joop Joosten, by Angelica Zander Rudenstine, by Hans Janssen
Leonardo Arte, 400 pp., $32.00 (paper)
Piet Mondrian: The Amsterdam Years
by Robert Welsh, by Boudewijn Bakker, by Marty Bax
Gemeentearchief Amsterdam, Thoth, 160 pp., $32.95 (paper)
Mondrian
by John Milner
Abbeville, 240 pp., $50.00
Mondrian: The Art of Destruction
by Carel Blotkamp
Abrams, 261 pp., $49.50
Mondrian died in New York, the city where he had been happiest, on the first of February 1944. A memorial meeting held two days later was attended by many of the most distinguished figures in the American art world and by virtually every single one of the famous European expatriate artists who formed a community within this world. And yet basically Mondrian died as he had lived: in near poverty, in solitude, and with that spare elegance and sense of personal style that was his alone, inimitable. Given the restrictions that he imposed on his own work, he was a remarkably open man, and he inspired admiration and affection in others; but friends, though trusted and cherished, were also gently kept at arm's length. Of lovers, as far as we know, there were none. By the mid-1920s Mondrian had become a fixed pole in the evolving story of modernism, and subsequently his reputation grew steadily if slowly, but only in informed circles; he never became a popular artist, nor would he have wished it. And yet his influence was incalculable.
Review, 7362 words
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