Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue (1927): Art, History and Details

Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue (1927) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Piet Mondrian (Dutch, 1872–1944).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

During the 1910s, Piet Mondrian’s art progressed from Cubism to an increasingly abstract style based on the form of a grid. He completely abandoned the representation of natural appearances, limiting himself to horizontal and vertical rectangles and three primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) along with black and white. Intensely intellectual and deeply philosophical, Mondrian believed that following the devastation of World War I, such abstract compositions could contribute to a more harmonious society by communicating in a universal, visual language.

Object facts

• Title: Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue
• Date: 1927
• Creator attribution: Piet Mondrian (Dutch, 1872–1944)
• Culture: Netherlands
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 62.2 x 62.6 x 10.8 cm (24 1/2 x 24 5/8 x 4 1/4 in.); Unframed: 49.5 x 49.5 cm (19 1/2 x 19 1/2 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1967.215

A detail from the museum

The small strip of wood around the outside of the canvas, painted the same gray as the canvas surface, is Mondrian’s original frame for the painting.

Collection credit

Contemporary Collection of The Cleveland Museum of Art

Further reading listed by the museum

• Henning, Edward B. “A Classic Painting by Piet Mondrian.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 55, no. 8 (October 1968): 241–249.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.
• Cleveland Museum of Art. Art of the Twentieth Century in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Dept. of Art History & Education, CMA, 1969.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.