In the manner of Piet Mondrian
Dutch, 1872–1944
Composition with Cells, 2026
Oil on canvas
127 × 127 cm
Never painted.
Commissioned for the collection, 2026.
PAB 2026.17.2
A fine black grid breaks the canvas into dozens of small white cells, and a few of them are filled: yellow, red, blue. One cell, right of centre, is outlined in a heavier black line, the one somebody clicked. Mondrian would spend weeks moving a line by a few millimetres. He would have understood the rest of us, formatting cells at half past five.
The brief
A dense fine grid of thin black lines with many small white rectangles and a few cells filled solid yellow, red and blue, one cell outlined thicker. De Stijl neoplastic oil painting, a grid of black horizontal and vertical lines of varying thickness on white, rectangles filled with pure red, yellow and blue, some lines broken into small stuttering blocks of colour like lights along a route, strict flatness, hand-painted edges slightly imperfect, matte surface. Museum photograph of the oil painting, flat even lighting, no frame, no text, no wall, no floor, cropped to the canvas edge.
Written to the house rules. The painter's name does not appear.
Take it home
The painting on this room's wall, at its own proportions, nothing written on it.
