Piet Mondrian

Composition of Red, Blue, Yellow, and White: Nom II

1939

Beginning in the late 1910s, Piet Mondrian helped to author the De Stijl movement, which called for a radical reduction of composition in order to express the essential and ideal in nature and the world, in which form would be reduced to line, compositional relationships to right angles, and colors to red, blue, and yellow. Composition of Red, Blue, Yellow, and White: Nom II expresses the tenents of De Stijl while retaining a vivid humanity, the vision of a painter who for almost two decades had been living and working with the belief that, if purified of self, art could lead to social harmony.

Piet Mondrian (b. 1872, Amersfoort, The Netherlands; d. 1944, New York)
Composition of Red, Blue, Yellow, and White: Nom II, 1939
Oil on canvas
17 5/8 x 15 in.
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
The Rita and Taft Schreiber Collection, given in loving memory of her husband, Taft Schreiber, by Rita Schreiber