About This Artwork

Piet Mondrian
Dutch, 1872–1944

Lozenge Composition with Yellow, Black, Blue, Red, and Gray, 1921

Oil on canvas
23 5/8 x 23 5/8 in. (60 x 60 cm)
Signed, l.c.: "PM/21"
Gift of Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., 1957.307

© Mondrian/Holtzman Trust c/o HCR International, Warrenton VA

Although Piet Mondrian's abstractions seem far removed from nature, his basic vision is rooted in landscape, especially the flat topography of his native Holland.

In Lozenge Composition, Mondrian reoriented a square support to produce a dynamic relationship between the composition and the diagonals of the edges. The fifth of sixteen diamond-shaped works, this deceptively simple painting reveals an exacting attention to subtle relations between lines, shapes, and colors. Mondrian hoped that his art would point the way to a utopian future in which the principles of universal harmony would be embodied in all facets of life and art. This was the goal of the De Stijl movement, first formulated in Holland around 1916-17 by Mondrian and a small group of like-minded artists and architects.

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum, Abstract Art: Gabo Pevsner Mondrian Domela, 1935.

Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, Piet Mondrian, November-December 1946, no. 110; traveled to Basel, Kunsthalle, February 6-March 2, 1947, no. 13.

New York, Museum of Modern Art, Selections from Five New York Private Collections, Summer 1951.

New York, Sidney Janis Gallery, Piet Mondrian, February 5-March 17, 1951, no. 21.

Chicago, Art Institute, Mondrian: The Process Works, October 3-November 8, 1970, no. 5.

Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, Mondrian: The Diamond Compositions, July 1-September 16, 1979, no.5.

Haags, Gemeentemuseum, Piet Mondrian, December 18, 1994-April 30, 1995; traveled to Washington, National Gallery of Art, June 11-September 4, 1995, and New York, Museum of Modern Art, October 1, 1995-January 23, 1996.

Chicago, Terra Museum of American Art, A Transatlantic Avant-Garde: American Artists in Paris, 1918–1939, April 17–June 27, 2004.

The Art Institute of Chicago, Henri Cartier-Bresson and the Art and Photography of Paris, September 20, 2008–January 4, 2009.

Paris, Centre Pompidou, Musée National d'art moderne, Mondrian, December 1, 2010–March 21, 2011, p. 223.

Publication History

Henry McBride, “Rockefeller, Whitney, Senior, Odets, Colin,” Art News 50 (June/August 1951), P. 34 ff. (ill.).

Michel Seuphor, Piet Mondrian: Life and Work (New York, 1956), p. 392, no. 400.

Ottavio Morisani, L’Abstrattismo die Piet Mondrian (Venice, 1956), no. 66.

The Art Institute, Paintings of the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, 1961), pp. 317, 342 (ill.).
Carlo L. Ragghianti, Mondrian e l’arte del XX secolo (Milan, 1962), p. 334, no. 568.

El Mundo de Los Museos, Instituto de Arte de Chicago (Madrid, 1967), p. 79 (ill.).

L’Opera completa di Mondrian, Classici dell’Arte 77 (Milan, 1974), p. 108, no. 336.

A. James Speyer and Courtnry Graham Donnell, Twentieth-Century European Paintings (Chicago, 1980), p. 58, no. 3A6.

John Milner, Piet Mondrian (London, 1992), pp. 164-165 (ill.).

Carel Blotkamp, Mondrian: The Art of Destruction (London, 1994), pl. 131.

James N. Wood and Teri J. Edelstein, The Art Institute of Chicago: Twentieth-Century Painting and Sculpture (Chicago, 1996), p.49 (ill.).

Briony Fer, On Abstract Art (New Haven, 1996), pp.50-52 (ill.).

Joop M. Joosten, Piet Mondrian: Catalogue Raisonné of the Work of 1911-1944 (New York, 1996), no. B127, pp. 48 (ill.), 295.

James N. Wood, Treasures from the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, 2000), p. 259 (ill.).

Ownership History

Consigned to Galerie de “L’Effort Moderne” (Léonce Rosenberg), Paris, 1921-22. Jakob von Domselaer and Maaike von Domselaer-Middelkoop, Bergen, the Netherlands, 1922(?)-1940/45. John Rädecker, Groet, the Netherlands, 1940/45-c. 1948. John L. Senior, Jr., New York, by 1949-1956 [letter from Sidney Janis Gallery in curatorial file]. Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, 1956. Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., New York, March 1, 1957. Given by him to the Art Institute, 1957.