Piet Mondrian born in Central Holland in 1872 and lived there for the first 8 years of his life. His father was a gifted draftsman and amateur artist. His uncle Frits Mondrian was a self taught painter who was commercially successful. Piet showed potential as a great artist from when he was young. His father got him drawing lessons while his uncle taught him the basics of painting. When he was older he got a teaching license like his father wanted but decided to become an artist instead. As an artist he joined many different societies and exhibited his work for the first time when he was 21. At the age of 31 he won his first prize from the "Arti et Amicitae Society". In 1910 Mondrian saw an exhibit by Picasso and decided to move to Paris to study cubism. This influenced his Artwork greatly.

Piet Mondrian is known as the father of graphic design. He was an important contributor to the De Stijl art movement, which was a Dutch artist movement started in 1917. He was the inventor of Neo-Plasticism which is translated as "new art" because of its new pure form. His art work consisted mainly of white backgrounds with black vertical and horizontal lines to create and grid and then the use of the three primary colors. He showed the world that less is more. This is a concept that is very important in graphic design. He showed that minimal composition made up of basic colors like red, yellow and blue with simple geometric shapes can be very influential. As a Graphic design major this concept has been one that I have been dealing a lot with. There is a very thin line between to be careful of when designing. You want your work to be simple but at the same time it has to be powerful!

When coming to New York after the start world war II Mondrian was influenced by the city's architecture and structure. His final painting Boogie Woogie Broadway was influenced by the city life and its constant motion. It is said that the yellow is representative of the yellow city cabs. It was also inspired by jazz music that Mondrian was attracted to when he came to New York. The colors and the balance made the painting very unique and impressionable.

In my color and design class we spoke about him and had to try to create our own design using tertiary colors which had to relate back to his work. His artwork is a nice way to study colors and the relationship between them.

Sheryl Blachman