No. 7
Artist
Piet Mondrian
(Dutch, 1872 - 1944)
Date1937-1942
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsFramed: 39 1/8 × 32in. (99.4 × 81.3cm)
Overall: 31 1/2 x 24 7/16in. (80 x 62.1cm)
Overall: 31 1/2 x 24 7/16in. (80 x 62.1cm)
ClassificationsPAINTINGS
Credit LineMuseum Purchase
Terms
Object number54.7
Description On View
On viewCollections
CopyrightMondrian/Holtzman Trust c/o HCR International USA, Washington, DC
Label TextNo. 7 belongs to a curious group of seventeen paintings that Mondrian began between 1935 and 1940 and finished between 1941 and 1943. They are called the "transatlantic paintings" because the first campaign of work occurred either in Paris or London while the second campaign took place in Manhattan, where Mondrian lived from the fall of 1940 until his death in 1944. These paintings seem to float somewhere between two stages of Mondrian's development: their black-line structures belong to his European work of the late 1930s while their free-floating bars and blocks of color, which he added after his arrival in New York, relate to the optically dazzling lines of the new works he began there. In short, the transatlantic paintings are hybrids, and it is notable that rather than try to hide this Mondrian virtually announced it by inscribing the works with double dates-in this case, "37 42," in bold red on black at lower right.
Harry Cooper
2005
