Mouton Rothschild

Baron Philippe de Rothschild first became involved in the family's wine production in 1922 and became proprietor upon the death of his father in 1947. The brand produces some of the finest wine available, but there's plenty of that around: more importantly, Baron Philippe developed the notion of incorporating the product with the most prestigious contemporary art by commissioning artists' labels.

Some of the participants: 1955 Braque;  1958 Dali; 1964 Henry Moore; 1969 Miró; 1979 Chagall; 1973 Picasso; 1975 Warhol. The 1993 nude by Balthus was banned in the USA and therefore released there with a blank label.

Regrettably, Mondrian's death in 1944 excluded him from the process. Had he lived a few years longer, he would surely have been invited to participate and produce a label. I had to fake this one.

There's a terrific source on the real labels here, images here and a good book, Mouton Rothschild: Paintings for the Labels, 1945-81, available at sensible prices second-hand.

Mark Caywood

Mark is the most creative of the Mondrian homagistes with two (or three) entries on the homage pages.

Three Hotels on Broadway Boogie-Woogie - 1949 (oil on canvas, 56x46 inches) echoes the 1940s New York pictures.


Jail Cell, Designed by Piet Mondrian
(Cement, Desk, Bed, Iron Bars: painted and furnished in 1941) evokes New York City, 1942 more directly.



 




Reitveld rather than Mondrian, but still De Stijl,  Red & Blue Electric Chair (Plywood, pine, leather, electric wires, 4' x 2') continues the theme of incarceration.




Mark's descriptions of the pieces is as witty as the pictures themselves and he also writes perceptively and acerbically on art and particularly art institutions. Mark's work is shown here.

Stamp homage

Further philately in one of the most elegant Mondrian homages. A beautifully crafted fake USA miniature sheet, based on B221.









StamPiet Mondrian, 2005 was created by an entrant called williamvonr for a challenge on Worth1000.

Mondrian and cigarettes

Many photographs of Mondrian show him with a cigarette (the example left was taken by Fritz Glarner in 1943) and,occasionally a pipe (there is, of course the famous 1928 Andre Kertesz photograph Mondrian's Pipe and Glasses, shown right).



I spent quite a long time trying to find out what brand of cigarettes Mondrian smoked, but without success, however, the Catalogue Raisonné lists sketches for paintings on Craven A, Blue Line (a brand I have not been able to track) and other cigarette packages.

There are numerous items of smoking Mondriana, the most pleasing of which are this cigarette pack (a normal pack of Camels in a sleeve) and matching Zippo lighter.

Mondrian inflation

B262 sold at Sotheby's, New York in May 2002 for $5.3M.

The installation photograph, right, from CR shows B262 at the Modern Pictures for Modern Rooms exhibition, London, April 1936. Photographer unknown.

Interestingly, the catalogue gives a price of £40 (and the same for B263). £40 to £3.6M in 66 years. I learned here that a Leica 111 f2 Summar sold for £39.10.0 in that year: the top of the range Leica non-digital rangefinder, the M7 with 50mm f2 Summicron-M now costs around £4,100. A post on that link suggests that an agricutural labourer's wages would have been around £1.12.0 (£1.50) per week at the time. The minumum adult (>21) wage is currently (2011) £5.93 per hour, £208 for a 35 hour week, 75 years later.
In round terms: Mondrians have risen by a factor of 90,000 in 66 years; Leicas by 100; and minimum wage by 140 in 75 years. So it goes - please advise me of any factual or mathematical errors encountered in these paragraphs.

Mondrian Theory #1

The Nicholsons were friends of Mondrian. It was Winifred Nicholson who brought him from Paris to London in 1938. In 1931 or 32, Winifred painted her children on holiday on the Isle of Wight, shown left. In 1942, Mondrian painted New York City, shown right. Winifred retained the painting until she sold it in 1971. In Christopher Andreae's lovely biography of Winifred, he notes that 'One evening in Winifred's flat in Paris, 1936, Mondrian had seen Winifred's paintings and appreciated them - 'It was a good evening at your home and I saw with pleasure your work; also your "naturalistic" painting is very pure and true,' he wrote her in a thank-you note.' (Letter in the Tate Archives, Ben Nicholson Papers).

So perhaps two of Mondrian's key influences were women: Marlow Moss for the double lines and Winifred Nicholson for the New York coloured lines.

Betty Boop

A fun piece found on eBay, rather fully priced at £59.99, Betty Boop in a YSL dress and holding a wittily-placed frame.