THE MONDRIAN, MIDTOWN EAST

by Kevin Walsh

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.

250 East 54th Street, off 2nd Avenue, is a 43-story condo tower whose spacious, viewy apartments I won’t be affording without a winning lottery ticket. I imagine the builders named the building, opened in 1990, on a whim for the modernist painter. Some of Mondrian’s colored boxes have been placed in the building’s awning, and there may be more Mondrian-inspired furnishings inside (if you know about them, Comments are open).

Kevin Walsh is the webmaster of the award-winning website Forgotten NY, and the author of the books Forgotten New York (HarperCollins, 2006) and also, with the Greater Astoria Historical Society, Forgotten Queens (Arcadia, 2013)

12/28/23

6 comments

Rik December 28, 2023 - 11:39 pm

He’s buried in Cypress Hills cemetery. I wonder if there’s anything connecting him to this particular spot in Manhattan.

Reply
chris December 29, 2023 - 7:46 am

He was the inspiration for The Partridge Family and David Cassidy

Reply
redstaterefugee December 29, 2023 - 12:15 pm

And “Hollywood Squares”?

BTW: Jackson Pollack must have laughed himself to death because for many years he was able to persuade all the self-styled “social commentators”, with the commendable exception of Tom Wolf, that his drop clothes were “works of art”. Wrong! And shame on Pollack!

Reply
Peter December 29, 2023 - 11:50 pm

Not long ago a museum in Germany discovered that for decades it had been exhibiting one of his paintings upside down.

Reply
Kevin Walsh December 30, 2023 - 11:48 am

How could they tell?

Reply
EP January 17, 2024 - 2:45 pm Reply

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