2005
Nancy J. Troy
- Professor
- University of Southern California
Abstract
This study examines the mature work of Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), in particular the circumstances in which his paintings and related projects of the 1940s were displayed, described, marketed, and otherwise circulated in the years after his death. Paying close attention to individual paintings and to Mondrian’s extraordinary studio environment, I provide a comprehensive examination of the roles played by artists, dealers, collectors, conservators, museum curators, and academic art historians in making, and remaking, Mondrian’s oeuvre. This history of art incorporates the often unanticipated consequences that result when an artist’s work comes into contact with the mechanisms of the art market and is assimilated into the realm of popular visual culture.