"Mondrian imposed rigorous constraints on himself, using only primary colors, black and white, and straight-sided forms. His theories and his art are a triumphant vindication of austerity."        Nicholas Pioch, WebMuseum, Paris

Composition with Gray and Light Brown
1918 (170 Kb); Oil on canvas,

(31 9/16 x 19 5/8 in)

Museum of Fine Arts,

Houston, Texas

Composition No. III Blanc-Jaune, 1935

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

This work  was the first Mondrian painting to be given a title based on its color. The picture's original appearance exemplified his work of the mid-1930s.     It was distinctive in its unusual verticality and its radical simplicity.

Mondrian, Piet (1872-1944),

Dutch painter, who carried abstraction to its furthest limits. Through radical simplification of composition and color, he sought to expose the basic principles that underlie all appearances.

 Born in Amersfoort, the Netherlands, on March 7, 1872, and originally named Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan, Mondrian embarked on an artistic career over his family's objections, studying at the Amsterdam Academy of Fine Arts. His early works, through 1907, were calm landscapes painted in delicate grays, mauves, and dark greens. In 1908, under the influence of the Dutch painter Jan Toorop, he began to experiment with brighter colors; this represented the beginning of his attempts to transcend nature. Moving to Paris in 1911, Mondrian adopted a cubist-influenced style. He moved progressively from seminaturalism through increased abstraction, arriving finally at a style in which he limited himself to small vertical and horizontal brushstrokes.

 In 1917 Mondrian and the Dutch painter Theo van Doesburg  founded De Stijl magazine, in which Mondrian developed his theories of a new art form he called neoplasticism. He maintained that art should not concern itself with reproducing images of real objects, but should express only the universal absolutes that underlie reality. He rejected all sensuous qualities of texture, surface, and color, reducing his palette to flat primary colors.  Mondrian was one of the most influential 20th-century artists. His theories of abstraction and simplification not only altered the course of painting but also exerted a profound influence on architecture, industrial design, and the graphic arts. Mondrian died in New York on February 1, 1944.