Wrong Mondrian painting on the left and right on the rightLeft: Mondrian painting as it was hung incorrectly; right: as it should be.
A painting by Dutch abstract artist Piet Mondrian has been hung upside down in several museums since it was first exhibited 75 years ago, an art historian has found, but warned it could disintegrate if it is now hung on the right side.
The 1941 image, an intricate latticework of red, yellow, black, and blue duct tape titled New York City I, was first exhibited at New York’s MoMA in 1945, but has since hung in the collection of ‘art of the German federal state of the North Rhine. -Westphalia in Düsseldorf since 1980.
The way the image is currently uploaded shows the multi-colored lines thickening at the bottom, suggesting an extremely simplified version of a skyline. However, when curator Susanne Meyer-Büser began researching the museum’s new show on the Dutch avant-garde artist earlier this year, she realized that the image should be the other way around.
“The grid thickening should be at the top, like a dark sky,” said Meyer-Büser. “Once I pointed it out to the other commissioners, we realized it was very obvious. I’m 100% sure the picture is the other way around.”
The work does not bear Mondrian’s signature, possibly because he had not finished it. Photograph: Henning Kaiser/DDP/AFP/Getty Images
The indicators that suggest an incorrect hang are multiple. The same size oil painting, New York City, on display in Paris at the Center Pompidou, has the thickening of the lines at the top.
A photograph of Mondrian’s studio, taken a few days after the artist’s death and published in the American lifestyle magazine Town and Country in June 1944, also shows the same figure sitting on an easel on the other side.
Meyer-Büser said it was likely that Mondrian worked by starting his intricate layering with a line right at the top of the frame and then working his way down, which would also explain why some of the yellow lines stop at about mil· meters before the bottom. border
“Was it a mistake when someone took the work out of its box? Was someone careless when the work was in transit?” the commissioner said. “It’s impossible to say.”
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Part of the problem is that, unlike most of Mondrian’s earlier works, New York City I does not bear the artist’s signature, possibly because he had not considered it finished.
Despite all evidence pointing to the work currently being displayed upside down, the work will be displayed as it has hung for 75 years in the new Mondrian. Evolution show that premieres on Saturday in Düsseldorf.
“The adhesive tapes are already very loose and hanging by a thread,” said Meyer-Büser. “If I turned it upside down now, gravity would pull it in another direction. And now it’s part of the history of the work.”
This article was amended on 28 October 2022 because an earlier version misspelled Susanne Meyer-Büser’s surname in several places. This has been corrected.