Master Class I

MASTER CLASS I
Piet Mondrian: The Modernist
Victoria Martino

This lecture series will trace Piet Mondrian's dramatic development through a veritable lexicon of art movements, from his early representational landscapes through Fauvism, pointillism, post-impressionism, neo-impressionism, luminism, and cubism to the final breakthrough of his unique personal style, which has become synonymous with 20th-century modernism.

April 1: Netherlands (1872–1911): Beginnings and Awakenings

Born into a devout Calvinist family in central Holland, Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan Jr. was encouraged by his family to draw and paint from early childhood. In 1892, he enrolled in the Royal Academy of Visual Arts in Amsterdam, where his academic training focused on drawing from the model, copying the Old Masters, and genre painting. He supported himself by making scientific drawings, producing copies of museum paintings, and giving private drawing lessons in his studio.

April 8: Paris (1911–1914): Experimentation and Integration

In 1911, Mondriaan visited the Moderne Kunstkring exhibition in Amsterdam. He was so impressed by the avant-garde work of the Cubists that he immediately resolved to move to Paris. Upon arrival, he changed his name, dropping an “a” from “Mondriaan,” as a symbol of his complete immersion into a new culture and society.

Experimenting with the style of Picasso and Braque, he found a way to integrate representational form and geometric abstraction in his work.

April 15: Netherlands (1914–1918): De Stijl and Neoplasticism

In the summer of 1914, Mondrian returned to the Netherlands to visit his father, who was seriously ill. The outbreak of WWI prevented him from returning to Paris, so he settled in the avant-garde artists' colony of Laren, where he met Bart van der Leck and Theo van Doesburg. With Van Doesburg, Mondrian founded the journal De Stijl (The Style), in which he published essays defining his artistic theory, which he named Neoplasticism.

April 22: Paris (1918–1938): Innovation and Determination

Although he returned to Paris at the end of the war, Mondrian continued his close collaboration with the artists of De Stijl. The 1920 publication of his booklet, Le Néo-plasticisme, served to disseminate his new theories throughout Europe. In the years that followed, Mondrian's artistic innovation led to the development of a unique pictorial language. Ever pursuing pure abstraction, he became affiliated with the international art associations Cercle et Carré and Abstraction-Création.

April 29: London and New York (1938–1944): Broadway Boogie-Woogie and Victory

In 1938, with war on the horizon, Mondrian decided to move to London. He was welcomed there by the Circle group, which had published his first essay in English, Plastic Art and Pure Plastic Art. The bombardment of London led him to flee to New York City, where he was received with enthusiasm by artists and collectors. Invigorated by the vibrant energy of the city, he worked tirelessly until his death from pneumonia in 1944.