The roots of 20th-century abstract art can be traced to the late 19th century, when artists began to move away from the direct representation of objects toward the communication of emotional states or moods. In doing so, the formal properties of art—such visual elements as line, color, and composition—assumed a primary role in its production. After World War I, many artists, including Piet Mondrian, believed that abstract art could contribute to a more harmonious society by communicating in a universal, visual language. In the wake of the war’s destruction, artists associated with De Stijl (meaning, “the style”) in the Netherlands recognized the need for a break with the past, as well as a new aesthetic language to correspond to their utopian vision of the world. In 1917 Mondrian joined the De Stijl movement and began to develop a purely visual language of verticals and horizontals, restricting his compositions to predominantly off-white grounds divided by black rectilinear lines that framed smaller blocks of primary colors.
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The Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Chicago, 1961) p. 317.
Ragghianti, Mondrian (1962), pp. 369, 754 (ill.).
Apollonio, Mondrian (1965), pl. XIV.
Dunlop, Mondrian (1967), pl. XIV
Busignani, Mondrian (1968), pl. 68
Elgar, Mondrian (1968), pp. 13, 152 (ill.).
Butor, “Notes autour de Mondrian,” (1976), p. 7.
Welsh, “The Place of Composition 12,” (1978), pp. 25 (ill.), 26–27.
Weyergraf, Mondrian und Van Doesburg (1979), p. 33.
Meuris, Mondrian (1991), pp. 185, 248 (ill.).
John Milner, Mondrian (New York: Abberville Press, 1992), no. 155, p. 196 (ill.).
A. James Speyer and Courtney Graham Donnell, Twentieth-Century European Paintings (Chicago, 1980), no. 3A7, p. 58.
Joop M. Joostens, Catalogue Raisonné of the Work of Piet Mondrian: 1911–1944, v. 2 (New York: Harry. Abramus, 1998), no. B 255, pp. 377 (ill.) p. 378.
James Meyer, with W. J. T. Mitchell, Andrew Solomon, Julie Bryan-Wilson, Shawn Michelle Smith, Tom Gunning, and Hillel Schwartz, The Double: Identity and Difference in Art Since 1900, exh. cat. (Washington D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2022), 28, 76, cat. 19 (color ill.).
Hartford, Abstract Art, 1935, no. 12
Chicago, Abstract Art, 1936, no II.
Chicago, Arts Club, Loan Exhibition of Modern Paintings and Drawings from Private Collections in Chicago, November 4–25, 1938.
Milwaukee, Art Institute, Industrial Designs by Brooks Stevens, February–May, 1950.
Chicago, Art Institute, Mondrian The Process Works, October 3–November 8, 1970.
New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Mondrian Retrospective, October 7–December 12, 1971.
Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art, Post-Mondrian Abstraction in America, March 31–May 13, 1973.
The Hague, Haags Gemeentemuseum, Piet Mondrian, 1872–1944, December 18–April 20, 1995; traveled to Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art, June 11–September 4, 1995; New York, Museum of Modern Art, October 1–January 23, 1996.
Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art, The Double: Identity and Difference in Art Since 1900, July 10–Oct. 31, 2022, cat. cat. 19.
Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum, The Age of Picasso and Matisse: Modern Masters from the Art Institute of Chicago, Oct. 6, 2013–Feb. 16, 2014, no cat. no.
Sold by the artist to Elizabeth Goodspeed, Chicago, Jan. 1936 [conversation between Elizabeth Chapman (previously Goodspeed) and Courtney Donnell, Oct. 1977; notes in curatorial file]; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1949.
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