The stark, frugal world of Piet Mondrian

In September 1940 the Dutch abstract artist Piet Mondrian arrived in New York, a refugee from war and the London Blitz. He was 68, a well known figure in modern art circles in Europe but as yet little appreciated on the other side of the Atlantic. His visas, his travel and his accommodation had been sorted out for him by well-wishers in Britain and he was welcomed in America by Harry Holtzman, an artist some 40 years his junior. On the evening of his arrival, Holtzman entertained the stiff, fastidious, well-dressed Mondrian to dinner in his apartment and introduced him, via the phonograph, to boogie-woogie. He recalled:

Mondrian’s response was immediate, he clapped his hands together with obvious pleasure. He sat in complete absorption to the music, saying, ‘Enormous! Enormous!’

Nicholas Fox Weber’s description of the evening and of the days that followed gives us, as does his entire biography, as intimate and exhaustively detailed a portrait of this elusive and contradictory genius as we are ever likely to get or want. He looked, Weber tells us, like a Dutch businessman but was often dependent financially on his friends. He was awkward in company, at times taciturn and rude, but inspired affection and loyalty in a succession of friends. He advocated – and lived – an ascetic and simple existence, but relished dancing to the latest jazz. He adored and was inspired by nature, but came to find the outward expression of his love in the pure abstraction of his art.