Composition with Double Lines and Yellow (unfinished)

1934

Not on view

Returned to lender

This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.

Mondrian sought to find equilibrium in a painting or, in his words, "to express harmony through the equivalence of relationships of lines, colors, and planes." The myriad options he tested and discarded in the process are laid bare to the viewer in canvases like this one. Shifting charcoal lines spread across the support; some even overlap a square of yellow paint that he had already committed to canvas. It might seem unfathomable that Mondrian’s paintings, in all their faultless precision, could ever have taken any other form, but the details here testify to the artist’s commitment to a process of trial and error. His letters from early 1935 suggest that illness prevented him from finishing more than a fraction of the paintings he had begun.

Artwork Details

Overview

Exhibition History

Title: Composition with Double Lines and Yellow (unfinished)
Artist: Piet Mondrian (Dutch, Amersfoort 1872–1944 New York)
Date: 1934
Geography: Country of Origin France
Medium: Oil and charcoal on canvas
Dimensions: 21 7/8 × 21 7/16 in. (55.5 × 54.5 cm)
Frame: 33 7/8 × 34 1/4 × 2 3/4 in. (86 × 87 × 7 cm)
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: Deutsche Bank Collection
Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art