Mondrian’s painting hung upside down for 75 years: the intuition of an Italian artist

A Mondrian painting has been hung upside down in various museums for over 70 years and no one has ever noticed. Until an Italian artist reported that, based on his studies and his research, the painting, as it was displayed, was not going well and had to be turned upside down.

The work in question is dated 1941 and is entitled New York City I: shows a complex interwoven network of red, yellow, black and blue adhesive tapes and was exhibited for the first time at the MoMA in New York in 1945. Since 1980 it has instead been in the North Rhine-Westphalia art collection in Dusseldorf. Currently, the painting hangs with the multicolored lines thickening at the bottom, but in a photograph from Mondrian’s studio, taken shortly after his death in 1944, the painting on is one of his easels with the densest parts of the lines. of the ribbon at the top.

Initially, it was thought that an art historian had the intuition of the mistake during the preparations for a new exhibition on the Dutch painter, on the 150th anniversary of his birth. “The thickening of the grid should be high up, like a dark sky,” he explained Susanne Meyer-Buser, the curator of the exhibition. “When I pointed this out to the other curators, we realized it was really obvious. I’m 100% sure the image is the wrong way around ». In Dusseldorf the Mondrian will probably remain upside down: Meyer-Buser also explained that it was hung upside down for so long that it was somehow accepted by historians, so correcting its positioning would almost be an interference: “If I turn the work of art, I run the risk of destroying it ».

But then it was the Italian artist who claimed the error was reported Francesco Visalli who explained that, already in September of last year, through an exchange of e-mails with the director of the museum Annette Kruszynski, he had signaled that the painting had to be turned upside down. “The director thanked me for the information I provided and she told me that she would include them in the curatorial file as she lacked certain information,” Visalli said, stressing that she was able to produce all the documentation sent.

Visalli has been carrying out research and studies on Mondrian for at least 15 years. Mondrian’s work in question is “New York City I (unfinished) – 1941”. Last July Francesco Visalli published his intuition on his Instagram profile. In these hours the artist exchanged messages with Wietse Coppes, editor of the Mondrian Edition Project at RKD Netherlands Institute for Art History, “who confirmed that based on the exchange of emails with the director of the Museum, the same institution should have accredited the discovery to Visalli “, the Italian artist reports, recalling that” I recently discovered another important fact regarding the provenance of another work by Mondrian kept at the Saint Louis art museum entitled Composition no.4 1938 – 42 with red and blue“.

Drawbacks of this kind are not uncommon, especially with abstract works. In 1961 the Museum of Modern Art in New York exhibited upside down Le Bateau by Matisse for 47 days until someone, more attentive, pointed out the mistake.