Piet Mondrian

Perhaps one of the 20th century's most profound artists, and one that has demonstrated the unique ability to create. He was an artist austerely devoted to his beliefs and commitments. He is known best for his days with the De Stijl and Neo Plastic movement, but his influence has grown to influence new styles of modernism to this day.

Childhood

Piet Mondrian was born on March 7, 1872. He came from a middle class Dutch family with high social values. His father was a schoolteacher; with an interest in art. The family had a high regard for their Calvinist religion. The Mondrian children were brought up in the strictest fashion. Mondrian always obeyed what his father said, if not out of fear, then out of respect. From an early age, Piet's father had already outlined his son's career. He was to go through training to be a teacher, and for a least a while, Mondrian obeyed his father.

However, Mondrian had begun to take an interest in art. One day he announced to his family his intentions to be an artist. His father, who was also an artist, did not want Mondrian to commit his life to such an idea. However, with Mondrian, he was eventually let free to attend the Academy of Fine Arts in Amsterdam.


His father allowed him to study in Amsterdam, and Mondrian did not disappoint his father. He didn't’t let the busy and distracting atmosphere of the city interfere with his studies. At the school Mondrian learned to appreciate a a deep regard for structure and form. He experimented with these many forms until he later traveled abroad. For the most part, his early childhood would later influence his career as an artist. However, his later influences would create work far more worthwhile.


Life as an Artist

Piet Mondrian, in his early career, never deviated from the path set for him in his art studies. He painted images that were conventional and tidy. He din’t try anything new, like the new techniques developing in Europe. But in his later career, Mondrian was influenced by a great deal of other influences, mainly those of Cubism, realism, and the Plastic images he would later be so fond of. Like another artist during this time, Vincent Van Gogh, Mondrian would not create the dramatic and compelling work until his later career. His early work is simply a reflection of his devotion to traditional style.

In New York, Mondrian would experience real success. His work became more known to modern art lovers. He met and conversed with other artists like Hans Ritcher, Alexander Calder, and Peggy Guggenheim. He was happy also to be accepted among his local expatriates like Marcel Duchamp and Fernand Leger. He no longer experienced any hardship as he did in his earlier days. He had all of his daily needs met. In the years to come, Mondrian's work would only become more and more influential.


Personality

Mondrian is described as an extremely self-disciplined person. Like his father, Mondrian devoted a part of himself to believing in his uncompromising belief.

His dress was always meticulously groomed and his appearance always neat. He had a confidence in his nature, always walking with his head held high. He regarded himself as a humble person. He never revealed his truest feelings. Instead he focused on appearing as a kind and cordial person. He appeared as a hardworking and noble citizen. He had adopted a strict philosophy of life. His religion was called Theosophy. He felt that he and his art would transcend through metaphysics. In general, Mondrian was a well-respected and solid person.


Piet Mondrian lived a life that would take him into his seventies. Looking back on his life in retrospect reveals a man that has left a legacy and impact. He not only introduced and led the ideas of Neo Plastic art, but he led others to boldly head in that same direction. Toward the end of his life, Mondrian suffered from the occasional health problems. He had grown fond of Americans, and had decided to direct his efforts to pursuing citizenship. However, Mondrian was never made an official citizen. He died in 1941 from a bad case of pneumonia.

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The World Of Andy Warhol

"Who or why or what is Andy Warhol?" demanded Auberon Waugh.

Warhol obscured his childhood with lies or myths from the moment he received public attention.

He was born in Pittsburgh in August 1928, the third son of Ondrej Warhola and his wife, Julia Zavacky. His parents had emigrated to America from the Carpathian Mountains in Central Europe. His father had a steady job laying roads, he saved money and was ambitious to get his family out of the slums.

The family were devout Byzantine Catholics, who spoke their native tongue at home and socialised with their own people. At the time of Andy's birth his mother could not speak English.

The young Andy attended Holmes Elementary School, but when he was eight caught rheumatic fever which developed into chorea (or St Vitus Dance). He was bullied at school before the condition was diagnosed and then nursed at home by his mother, who gave him magazines to cut up for pictures.

From the age of nine, he went to Saturday morning art classes at the Carnegie Museum. In 1945, on graduating from high school, he went to study art at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. Here he learnt from the Bauhaus technique that art was a business. He later based his New York studio, known as the Factory, on such principles.

As a youth he suffered badly from acne and had linguistic problems stemming from his home environment. At college his fellow students thought he had "a childlike duality about him". No one then considered that he might be homosexual.

In 1948, whilst still at college, he got a job in the display department of a department store. He painted his fingernails a different colour every day and began to dye his shoes odd colours.

He moved to New York in 1949 and got work as a commercial artist. His portfolio fitted perfectly into the magazine world. In 1953, he won an award for his advertisement for the radio programme the Nation's Nightmare.

In 1952, his mother moved to New York to live with him.

By 1953, he was beginning to go bald so bought himself a wig, the first of hundreds. "Nobody could ever send him up," said one friend; "he had already done so himself."

His Soup Cans exhibition in Los Angeles did not attract much serious interest, but repetition had become important to him in his work and he found that by developing silk screen techniques he could reproduce images more easily. His Marilyn Monroe (1962) was inspired by her death.

By 1963, drugs began to have their influence on the Factory's output. Warhol turned it into a film studio. His reputation increased with the series of underground films he made, which were remarkable for their length (some lasted for 25 hours), their lack of action and their voyeurism. He always used his friends in his films and rarely paid them.

The art critic Robert Hughes described Warhol's entourage in this way: "they were all cultural space-debris ... they gave him a ghostly aura of power". He did appear to wield some sort of charismatic power over his followers. In 1968, one of them, Valerie Solanas, shot Warhol three times. He nearly died.

The 70s saw him attracting socialites such as Margaret Trudeau and pop idols like Mick and Bianca Jagger. He inspired David Bowie and Glitter Rock and was respected by the 70s Rock world. He was feted at the House of Commons at a reception hosted by Norman St John Stevas and, in 1976, was commissioned to paint Jimmy Carter's portrait. He had become a cult figure for the jet-set society.

In 1980 he published a book, Popism, on which the Observer commented: "Warhol is welcome to his fond mortuary reflections".

Warhol died in February 1987 and was buried next to his parents.

A Closer Look At The Campbell's Soup Cans

When Andy Warhol started painting Campbell's soup cans in 1962, the company sent lawyers along to investigate. Little did they know, then, what an effect the paintings would have on their sales, as a new movement in art, Pop Art, was born; and all the experts could do was watch with bemusement and astonishment, as Andy signed soup cans and sold them as souvenirs.

For the early paintings Andy used the red and white of the original cans - but later he incorporated a wide variety of arbitrary colours.

In July 1992, Irving Blum's Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles showed a series of the Soup Can paintings together for the first time, an exhibition that was to herald the arrival of Pop Art to the west coast. Until that time a few of the paintings had been scattered around various New York galleries - but there had been no formal exhibition in New York. This followed later that year at the Stable Gallery.

In 1997, the Campbell Soup Company, who had by now acknowledged the importance of the paintings, sponsored the 'Art of Soup' contest, which marked the 100th birthday of Campbell's soup and the 35th anniversary of Warhol's homage to it. The winning design was a sheet of commemorative postage stamps, each one depicting a different flavour of Campbell's soup submitted by New Jersey man, Dino Sistilli. He was presented with a cheque for $10,000 at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.

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