Iconic homage

B217

Composition with Red, Blue and Yellow, 1930 is, perhaps the best known Mondrian abstract: designated B217 in the Catalogue, it is almost identical to B219 and to an uncatalogued gouache. The three are owned by the Kunsthaus, Zürich, the Fukuoka City Bank and the Triton Foundation respectively.

Nick Blackburn

Given its iconic status, it is commonly the subject of homages and I'll show some here.

The first is mine from around 2002.



The second is an intriguing piece, Kompozicija II, from a Serbian web site which keeps disappearing, then popping up elsewhere. Here's the link at the time of writing.

Alexie Sayle

Alexie Sayle used the piece in his BBC Series. The sketch explores the assertion that everyone's first job is (and I quote) "shite". He covers Malcolm X, Joyce, Ghandi and PM: "The minimalist painter Piet Mondrian was a highly unsuccessful court artist for German television. This picture is entitled Scuffle breaks out between prosecuting counsel and defendant." A better image would be nice.

An advertisement for the Investors' Chronicle in The Spectator. Tinkered with and inverted, but still B217.

Katie Jackson

From a long and frequently brilliant series of remakes on booooooom, the suitcase remake is by Katie Jackson.

And finally, from the book Tidying Up Art by Ursus Wehrli. This is out of print and is set at silly prices on second-hand sites (e.g. £160 even from Oxfam). I don't believe anyone has ever paid more than £10 for it, but once one seller generates a random number, the others seem to follow suit. There is a German edition, Kunst aufräumen, which is sensibly-priced and might have the same contents, so I'll buy one of those and see.

Ursus Wehrli

I can confirm that the German edition contains the image and that it references the Kunsthaus Zürich work, B217. There are many other fine pieces covered, well worth buying. 

Heidi Mulder

A new addition in July 2012 is Heidi Mulder's Mondrian Nude 1. Full details in the Nude homages post.

Marlow Moss

Time to remind anyone with an interest in Mondrian of the merits of Marlow Moss (1889-1958), his friend and reciprocal influence.

The recent Rome exhibition L'armonia perfetta included three of Moss's paintings, including White, black, red and grey, shown right.

Mondrian was a significant influence on Moss and many believe that she influenced him by introducing the double line.

Moss lived with Netty Nijhoff at Chateau d'Evreux, Gauciel in Normandy from 1937, but they fled to Holland and then to England in 1940. The Chateau was taken over by the French air force and in 1944 was destroyed in a bombing raid, along with most of Moss's life work and two Mondrians, lent to Moss by Wim and Tonia Stieltjes.

The literature available on Moss includes a book on the reconstruction of her works by Florette Djikstra, and a PhD thesis by Lucy Howarth, available from the British Library.