Piet Mondrian
Tableau (yellow, black, blue, red and grey)
Date 1923
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions 54.5 x 53.5 cm
Inventory ID UID 102-623
623.jpg
Two years previously Mondrian had abandoned coloured backgrounds in order to restrict himself to a white background with horizontal and vertical black lines and the three primary colours: red, yellow and blue. Certain infringements of his theoretical principles can be detected here. The dark area at the top right – an almost-black flat surface surrounded by black lines – can still be seen in some paintings from the 1921-1923 period, though it would later disappear. We can see that the black line at the top left doesn’t completely enclose the yellow area. This work dates from the year that Mondrian’s work was discovered by a young painter and poet, Michel Seuphor, who became an ardent admirer and would be his first biographer and principal theoretician of his work, and the author of his catalogue raisonné. Mondrian’s European reputation was established and this painting was exhibited in 1924 in Vienna (Förderung moderner Kunst). AC
Til Brugmann, The Hague; E.H.E.L. Cabos and M.F. Cabos-de-Fries, Rotterdam/Utrecht (pre-1951); John L. Senior Jr, New York (1951-1958); Sidney Janis Gallery, New York (1968-1969); Galerie Beyeler, Basle (1959); Riccardo Jukker Milan (1959); private collection; Ivor Braka Limited, London.