Mondrian I I Nicholson: In Parrellel, Courtauld Gallery, London

Ben Nicholson, June, 1937

An exciting exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery, London, shall be taking place early next year (from February to May 2012), exploring the relationship between two enigmatic modernist abstract painters of the early 20th Century...

'The story of the creative relationship between the artists Piet Mondrian and Ben Nicholson is largely untold. Yet during the 1930s they were leading forces of avant-garde art in Europe.

This exhibition will be the first to offer a comprehensive account of the parallel artistic paths charted by Mondrian and Nicholson during this remarkable decade. It will bring together an extraordinary group of paintings and reliefs to show how each artist was driven by a profound belief in the potential of abstract art to attain the highest aesthetic and spiritual power.' 

I'll keep you posted of developments...

Mondrian in Paris at the Centre Pompidou

Piet Mondrian, "composition en rouge, bleu et blanc II", 1937
© Mondrian / Holtzman trust, coll. Centre Pompidou, RMN

A new retrospective exhibition at Centre Pompidou in Paris, re-assesses the legacy of Mondrian and De Stijl. Amazingly this is the first exhibition of Mondrian to truly assess his influence on twentieth century art, especially with his ideas regarding Neo-Plasticism to be held in France. The exhibition explores his commitment to painting from the early years of the twentieth century, through his ground breaking developments with De Stijl combining his ideas on Theosophy with other artists, Theo Van Doesburg and Gerrit Rietveld. They created such a strong social understanding of the role art can play, especially abstraction, in society. His legacy remains not only in abstract paintings of a geometric and reductive style, but also in 'concret' sculpture, city planning, architecture, furniture design and graphic design.  You may be interested in an article by Simon Schama, where he has written a review entitled 'Driven to Distraction' in the Financial Times on 17th December 2010. In this he explores the photographs of his studio taken by Andre Kertesz (see below), but also Schama states: 

'But don’t go looking for it in this otherwise exhaustive and glorious show which is, after all, a heartfelt celebration of the modernist furnace that once was Paris – even if it took someone as resolutely Dutch as Piet Mondrian to distil abstraction from its fizzing alembic.'

Andre Kertesz, 'Chez Mondrian' 1926

The photo above is a well known photo, but the photo below shows his studio interior and his bed, it defines clearly the simplicity in which his life was lived, also expressed so clearly through his work.

Andre Kertesz, 'Mondrian's Studio' 1926

 The exhibition runs through until 21st March 2011 at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.