Mondriaan

Mondriaan, commonly known as Piet Mondrian, was a Dutch painter who helped shape modern abstract art in the 20th century. Born Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan on 7 March 1872 in Amersfoort, the Netherlands, he later simplified his surname to Mondrian. He is best known for reducing imagery to a strict geometry of vertical and horizontal lines and primary colors, and for works characterized by a grid of black lines with red, blue, and yellow blocks.

In the 1910s Mondrian joined the De Stijl movement, also called Neoplasticism, which sought universal harmony through simplification and abstraction. He developed a language of form that used asymmetrical grids and solid color fields to express order and balance. By the 1920s his paintings had become even more austere, largely with white ground, black grid, and color planes.

World War II prompted Mondrian to relocate to the United States in 1940, where he settled in New York City. He died there on 1 February 1944. Mondrian's insistence on abstraction as an expression of universal values influenced modern art, architecture, and design, and his ideas remain central to discussions of De Stijl and neoplasticism.

Notable works include Composition with Red, Yellow and Blue (1930) and Broadway Boogie Woogie (1942–43), which, though more dynamic, remains anchored in the artist’s geometric vocabulary. His legacy endures in museums worldwide and in the continued re-creation of his grid-based aesthetic across media.