Piet Mondriaan
The Netherlands (1872—1944)
Born Pieter Mondriaan, he enrolled at the Academy of Visual Arts in Amsterdam. In 1909 he joined the Theosophical Society, whose beliefs deeply influenced Mondrian concept of art and expression. In 1912 he moved to Paris and discovered Analytic Cubism, shifting from figurative landscapes to frameworks and colour grid. As WWI broke out he could not leave Holland and developed his style more independently. With Theo Van Doesburg he founded the De Stijl journal in 1917. In this he promoted the Neo-Plasticism as a new way of representing reality. After WWI he moved back to Paris, where he produced his most iconic paintings, and later to London, where he met Peggy Guggenheim, who introduced him to the New York artistic scene. Here his visual language further evolved using double lines, colour lines and no lines at all. He created his Broadway Boogie Woogie in 1943, just a year before his death.
