One of Piet Mondrian’s famous modernist paintings may have hung upside down for a decade, according to research by an art historian, but the piece won’t be flipped anytime soon.
Dubbed “New York City 1”, the palette features Mondrian’s classic primary color palette and gorgeous geometric lines. The Dutch artist painted a series of “New York City” paintings in 1941 and 1942 after moving to the city from Europe.
“New York City 1” has always had a series of stripes at the bottom of the frame, according to a catalog from the gallery of Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, the German gallery that bought the painting from 1980. The museum has an exhibition dedicated to Mondrian’s work.
But a photo of the work in Mondrian’s studio shows the painting in reverse, suggesting that this may be the way the artist wanted it.
It may be impossible to determine the right direction, the museum says in the catalog. The painter died in 1944.
“However, if we continue the experiment and rotate New York 180 degrees, we will see that the image still works,” says the museum in the catalog. “In fact, it works very well: the composition acquires density and elasticity.”
Inverting the table makes it more compatible with “New York City”, another painting from the same series.
“The density of the stripes along the top edge gives the work a resemblance to its relative ‘New York City’, where the densest area is also found on the top edge,” says the museum in the catalog. “The blue stripes are now positioned in exactly the same places along the left, top and bottom edges.”
The painting consists of strips of colored masking tape that the artist applied to the canvas, which, according to the museum, he will likely want to replace later by painting directly onto the canvas. The inverted orientation corresponds to the placement of the Mondrian stripes from top to bottom on the canvas.
“The initial visual inspection confirmed the suspicion that by flipping the canvas, the tape on the top edge lines up with the edge of the image, while those on the bottom vanish, losing pieces here and there,” says the museum. Catalog. “Assuming Mondrian started by tying the ribbons at the top and, following the principle of gravity, unrolling them to attach them to the bottom of the canvas, the painting was hanging upside down since it was first shown in 1945.”
It is also possible, according to the museum, that “Mondriaan flipped the image over and over while he was working on it, in which case there would be no right or wrong direction.”
This open quality can also be part of a larger message about New York City itself.
“This is perhaps the truly revolutionary feature of NYC 1: the fact that it can be read in any direction, like a map of a big city, in an open attitude, and at the same time it moves in all directions, like boogie. of couple-ing. ”, Writes the museum.
For now, the painting will remain in the direction it has always been, curator Susanne Meyer-Bowser said at a press conference that opened the gallery on Thursday. Flip it over and you risk damaging it – the trending eclipse is now a unique part of the object’s story.
