And I, of the Mondrian dresses that were all the rage in the mid-60s.
Posted on 10/27/2022 3:37:24 PM PDT by nickcarraway
At a press conference on the eve of Mondrian. Evolution, a Piet Mondrian exhibition at Germany’s Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen K20 museum, curator Susanne Meyer-Büser announced that New York City 1 (1941) has been displayed upside down since it was first seen in public, German publication Monopol reported Thursday.
The first clue that the painting, an adhesive tape version of the similarly named New York (which hangs right-side up in Paris at the Centre Pompidou), was hung incorrectly came from a photograph of the artist’s studio in 1944, shortly after he passed away, the curator said at the press conference. In the photo, New York City 1 can be seen on an easel, with the tightly grouped yellow, blue, and black stripes at the top.
“Could it be that the orientation shown in the photo is the actual one Mondrian had intended?” Meyer-Büser said she asked. According to Meyer-Büser the picture was first shown at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1945. There, too, the thick grouping of stripes was shown at the bottom of the work instead of at the top. “Was it coincidence, was it oversight?” she said, adding that perhaps it was flipped over while being unpacked at MoMA over 75 years ago.
Meyer-Büser claims to have proof beyond the photograph taken on Mondrian’s studio. She believes the artist would have worked from top to bottom, carefully layering the strips of tape over one another, weaving them together in a specific way, a feat that would be much more difficult if he worked from bottom up.
Further, at what is currently the top of the picture, the tape is harshly torn and does not reach the edge of the canvas—another sign that Mondrian likely worked from top to bottom.
Regardless, the work will be displayed at Mondrian. Evolution, which chronicles Mondrian’s stylistic development, the way it has been since 1945, unclean ends up, thick grouping of horizontal tape at the bottom.
“If I turn the work around, I risk destroying it,” Meyer-Büser said, according to Monopol, and besides “maybe there is no right or wrong orientation at all?”
New York City 1 is not the only time that the MoMA supposedly displayed a work the wrong way. In 1961, during the museum’s exhibition of work by Henri Matisse, a stockbroker named Genevieve Habert noticed the paper cut La Bateau was hung upside down. Neither the museum staff, the 116,000 visitors, nor the artist’s son Pierre had realized the mistake.
After multiple visits, Habert bought a catalogue and discovered she was right, only to be scoffed at my museum staff. She then approached the New York Times, which reported on the topsy-turvy cut out.
Shortly after publication, MoMA curators took a second look and ultimately rehung the picture the correct way. “Mrs. Habert should be given a medal,” Pierre Matisse told the Times.
And I, of the Mondrian dresses that were all the rage in the mid-60s.
That was my FIRST choice, but I couldn’t decide which one! :)
As for me? In Reality (Where *I* live; Miss You Every DAY, Rush!) I am both a Renoir and Mary Cassatt art lover...with a few Van Gogh pieces thrown in there for good measure. ;)
Have you seen, ‘Loving Vincent?’ Such a cool movie!
https://www.imdb.com/video/vi1862449433/?playlistId=tt3262342&ref_=tt_ov_vi
I like the art on freight trains. A lot of it is Von Bode stuff and some of it is R. Crumb.
I have not seen the movie; but thanks for the tip!
I’m an art nouveau kinda gal. Klimt, for instance. Also love Italian still lifes of fruits or flowers.
“A Mondrian Work Was Found to Have Been Hung Upside-Down for Over 75 Years”
are they sure? you know, really, really, really sure?
Any work of art that could be hung upside down for years without anyone knowing it, isn’t actually a work of art at all.
But I like Pop Art, too. Audrey hangs in my kitchen:
Looks fine to me!.........................
So to get the right orientation from the made in China sticker do you flip it over or turn in around. Is there an ISO standard for this sort of thing?
Did you see the Mark Wahlburg movie “Contraband” where the smugglers disguised a Jackson Pollock by placing it on the floor of a van like a painter’s dropcloth???
It’s a piece of crap no matter which way you hand it.
One of Klimt's teachers was the Austrian artist Michael Rieser, born in Schlitters in 1828, who was an ancestor. We have recently sold a collection of Rieser's preparatory works to the Klimt Foundation in Salzburg. Klimt's success was phenomenal. Michael Rieser, his teacher, was the brother of my grandmother's grandfather. His work was mostly on religious subjects:
Gustav Klimt
If there’s one thing that former ‘Chicago Weather Girl’ knows how to do, it’s how to make money!
It sucks. But what would I know, I never went to art appreciation class for someone to tell me that to be a snob you have to like crap.
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