Mondrian: Foundations at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston

Sat, Nov 11 - Sun, Apr 28  2024

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

From November 11 until April 28, 2024, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston presents the exhibition "Mondrian: Foundations."

“Mondrian: Foundations” presents 28 paintings and works on paper, primarily from Mondrian’s early career, that trace the artist’s explorations as he progressed from realistic traditions to experimental abstractions. The exhibition shows Mondrian’s evolution from his earliest-known painting, The Large Ponds in the Hague Forest (1887)—made when he was just 15 years old—to his classic Composition with Blue, Yellow, and Red (1927).

In the years around 1900, before Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) created some of the most recognizable abstract canvases of the last century, he turned his eye to the characteristic sights of the Dutch landscape: canals, windmills, fields, flowers, and trees. Mondrian’s earlier and lesser-known works reveal a restless and experimental artist who constantly reinvented himself, absorbing new influences and moving away from conventions of representation.