Abstract pioneer: Harmonies in red, yellow, and blue

A key figure in the international avant-garde, Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) was at once an extraordinary painter and leading art theoretician whose influence resonate to this day. Coining the term “Neo-plasticism’, he pursued a style of painting composed only of primary colors against a grid of black vertical and horizontal lines and a white base background.

Mondrian’s vision was that this essential painting would help to achieve a society in which art as such has no place, but rather exists for the total realization of “beauty”. With stints in Amsterdam, Paris, London, and New York, Mondrian drew upon the modern metropolis and modern music, especially jazz, as points of inspiration. In 1917, he co-founded De Stijl, originally a publication, and subsequently a circle of practitioners, committed to a strictly geometrical art of horizontals and verticals.

With key works and succinct texts, this introductory book presents Mondrian's distinctive and pioneering oeuvre, an abiding inspiration for fashion, art, architecture, and design, from White Stripes album covers to Yves Saint Laurent dresses.

About the Series:

Each book in TASCHEN’s Basic Art series features:

a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance

a concise biography

approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions

Susanne Deicher studied in Göttingen and Berlin, where she gained her doctorate in 1993 with a thesis on Piet Mondrian. Since 1997 she has been professor of History of Art and Culture, Aesthetics, and Architectural and Design Theory at the University of Wismar.