A Piet Mondrian Painting Has Been Hanging Upside Down for More Than 75 Years
The work, first exhibited at New York’s MoMA, might have been accidentally mislabeled or turned over in a crate.
By Alexandra Tremayne-Pengelly
An abstract art piece from Dutch painter Piet Mondrian has mistakenly been hanging upside down for the past 77 years.
Mondrian’s 1941 New York City 1, consisting of multi-colored taped lines, has been held at Germany’s Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen’s art collection since 1980. It was first exhibited at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1945.
However, a press conference for the Kunstsammlung’s new Mondrian exhibition included the surprising revelation that New York City 1 was displayed incorrectly by both institutions, as reported by German publication Monopol.
A photograph taken of Mondrian’s studio shortly after his death in 1944 pictured the artwork oriented opposite of how it has ben exhibited, said curator Susanne Meyer-Buser, who researched the museums’s upcoming Mondrian show. The placement of tape on the unsigned painting also indicates the piece was hung incorrectly.