Pieter Cornelis (Piet) Mondrian:
(Amersfoort, 7 March 1872 – New York, 1 February 1944) . Dutch painter and art theorist, who lived and worked abroad in later life. Mondrian is widely regarded as a pioneer of abstract and non-figurative art. His later geometric-abstract work in particular, with its distinctive horizontal and vertical black lines and primary colours, is world-famous and serves as an inspiration to many architects and designers of applied art. He was one of the main contributors to the magazine De Stijl and developed his own art theory, which he called new imagery or neo-plasticism. He is better known abroad as Mondrian, a change he introduced himself after living in Paris. In 1908, he joined the Theosophical Society.
After some years, my work began to unconsciously detach itself from the natural appearance of reality. Experience became my only teacher. I still knew very little about modern painting. When I first saw the work of the Impressionists, Van Gogh, Van Dongen, and the Fauves, I admired it. But it was my path to seek the truth on my own.
