The Emily Fisher Landau Collection: An Era Defined | Evening Auction

The Emily Fisher Landau Collection: An Era Defined | Evening Auction

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 18. Composition (unfinished).

Piet Mondrian

Composition (unfinished)

Auction Closed

November 9, 12:13 AM GMT

Estimate

8,000,000 - 12,000,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Piet Mondrian

(1872 - 1944)


Composition (unfinished)

charcoal on canvas

45 ⅛ by 45 ⅛ in. 115 by 115 cm.

Executed in 1938.

Estate of the artist

Harry Holtzman, New York (acquired from the above in 1944)

Pace Gallery, New York

Acquired from the above in August 1970 by the present owner

Joseph Mascheck, “Mondrian the New Yorker,” Artforum, vol. XIII, no. 2, October 1974, p. 61

Maria Grazia Ottolenghi, L’Opera completa di Mondrian, Milan, 1974, no. 458/1, illustrated (incorrectly oriented)

Exh. Cat., Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie (and traveling), Mondrian: Drawings, Watercolors, New York Paintings, 1980, fig. 14, pp. 56-57, illustrated (titled New York City No. 5 and incorrectly oriented)

Yve-Alain Bois, L'Atelier de Mondrian: Recherches et dessins, Paris, 1982, fig. 19, pp. 24-25, illustrated

Marjorie Welish, "Artful Balance," House and Garden, vol. 157, no. 5, May 1985, p. 168, illustrated in color (in installation)

Joop M. Joosten, Piet Mondrian: Catalogue Raisonné of the Work of 1911-1944, vol. II, New York, 1998, no. B290, p. 399 

Mark Stephen Archer, The New Formal: Interiors by James Aman, New York, 2016, p. 29, illustrated in color (in installation) 

John Thomason, "Norton's New Exhibition a Trove of Contemporary Art Riches," Boca Magazine, 16 March 2022 (online)

Netherlands Institute for Art History (RKD), eds., “Composition (unfinished), 1938,” Piet Mondrian: Catalogue Raisonné, no. B290, illustrated in color (online)

Art Gallery of Toronto; Philadelphia Museum of Art; and The Hague, Gemeente Museum, Piet Mondrian: 1872-1944, February - August 1966, no. 109, pp. 214-215 (Toronto and Philadelphia); no. 120, pp. 190-91 (The Hague), illustrated (titled New York City No. 5 and dated 1941-42)

Houston, University of St. Thomas, Six painters: Mondrian, Guston, Kline, De Kooning, Pollock, Rothko, February - April 1967, no. 11, p. 33, illustrated (titled NewYork, dated circa 1941 and catalogued with incorrect dimensions)

New York, Pace Gallery and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Mondrian: The Process Works. An Environment and Drawings 1921-1942, April - August 1970, p. 49, illustrated (in installation image of New York, Pace Gallery, Mondrian: The Process Works. An Environment and Drawings 1921-1942, 1970) and p. 59, illustrated (titled Classic drawing no. 29 and dated 1941-42)

The Hague, Gemeente Museum; Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art and New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Piet Mondrian: 1872-1944, December 1994 - January 1996, no. 182, p. 308, illustrated in color (dated circa 1938-40)

New York, PaceWildenstein, Mondrian/Reinhardt: Influence and Affinity, October - December 1997, no. 11, illustrated in color (dated circa 1938-40)