PERHAPS you don’t immediately know the name Piet Mondrian, but you might more readily know his style: unevenly spaced boxes, some filled with color, some without. They have been used in design, architecture, even clothing for a century. Born in Holland, Mondrian (1872-1944) like many abstract and modern artists such as Picasso started out working realistically, but got ever more abstract as he went on. “I’m not a connoisseur but I know what I like,” and while Hopper is my favorite painter in a realistic style, for me, Mondrian edges out people like Jackson “Jack the Dripper” Pollock as far as modern art is concerned.
Long Island Rail Road underpasses in Queens have been getting more interesting over the past decade or two, with artwork installed on the walls. The main line of the LIRR was elevated in Queens between 1909 and 1916 for the most part, and since then, underpasses have been places to put car wrecks or get mugged, but at least things have begun to get a little better with art to brighten your day.
The works on the Yellowstone Boulevard are clearly Mondrian-inspired, and feature the words love, respect, tolerance and resilience translated into different languages, some with Roman letters, some not. Fruits and vegetables also fill in the Mondrian boxes. I am afraid I do not know who rendered these paintings, which appeared in late 2018.
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12/16/21
5 comments
Interesting. Perhaps a little Van Gogh in Dutch Kills next?
“I am afraid I do not know who rendered these paintings, which appeared in late 2018….”
Do we know the whereabouts of the Partridge Family in that timeframe?
He was also immortalized in the paint scheme for The Partridge Family school bus
i dk but ill take it over a blank or grafitti wall.
Mondrian is buried locally, at the Cypress Hill in Glendale Queens, and Cypress Hill, Brooklyn.