Pieter Cornelis “Piet” Mondriaan was born March 7, 1872 and died on February 1, 1944. He was a Dutch painter.
He was part of the De Stijl art movement. Mondrian called his style of art Neo-Plasticism. Starting with white ground, he painted a grid of vertical and horizontal black lines and filled in rectangles with the three primary colors.
This new style gave Mondrian his place in art history. Watch this video from SFMOMA to see how his work changed over time.
Here is a cool animation that shows a mini-Mondrian making some of his most famous paintings!
Why don’t you try to make your own Mondrian style artwork?
Here is what you need:
1 piece of 12″x12″ white paper
6 pieces of 1″x12″ black paper strips
red, yellow, blue marker, crayons, pencils or paint
glue
Here is what you do:
1. Glue the black paper strips wherever you like, just make sure they are horizontal and vertical.
2. Color in whatever rectangles you like. Leave a few blank if you want.
3. Tell everyone you are now a de Stijl artist!
Here are some examples of what your art could look like.