Composition No. 12 with Blue

A principal figure in the Dutch De Stijl movement, Mondrian advocated pure abstraction. Gradually eliminating subject matter in his painting, he sought clarity, purity and order by reducing his forms to squares and rectangles, and by restricting colour to the primaries, black and white. He began this painting in 1936, while living in Paris, and finished it in 1942, after moving to New York, where his compositions became more dense and dynamic, reflecting the energy of the bustling metropolis. Frame: painted wood. Designed by the artist