Artist Events

1883 Aug 30 Christian Emil Marie Küpper (Theo van Doesburg) Born
Theo van Doesburg was born as Christian Emil Marie Küpper on 30 August 1883 in Utrecht as the son of the photographer Wilhelm Küpper and Henrietta Catherina Margadant. After a short train...
1892 Mondrian Enters the Academy for Fine Art in Amsterdam
After a strictly Protestant upbringing, in 1892, Mondrian entered the Academy for Fine Art in Amsterdam, already qualified as a teacher. He began his career as a teacher in primary edu...
1908 Mondrian's Interest in Theosophy Begins
Mondrian's art was always intimately related to his spiritual and philosophical studies. In 1908 he became interested in the theosophical movement launched by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky in...
1911 Mondrian Moves to Paris
In 1911, Mondrian moved to Paris and changed his name (dropping an 'a' from Mondriaan) to emphasize his departure from the Netherlands. From this point on, he signed his work as "Mondrian...
1914
to 1919
Mondrian Visits Netherlands; World War I Begins
We cannot know what immediate course Mondrian’s painting—as distinct from his ideas about painting—would have followed if the war had not disrupted his artistic pursuits in the summer of ...
1915 Theo van Doesburg Promotes De Stijl Movement
It was while reviewing an exposition for one of these magazines he wrote for, in 1915 (halfway through his two-year service in the army), that he came in contact with the works of Piet Mo...
1917 Volume I of De Stijl Journal Published
The De Stijl (literally, "the style") art movement was founded by the painter and architect Theo van Doesburg in Leiden in 1917. It encompassed a new type of style in modern art and archi...
1919
to 1938
Mondrian Returns to France
When the war ended in 1919, Mondrian returned to France, where he would remain until 1938. Immersed in the crucible of artistic innovation that was post-war Paris, he flourished in an atm...
1944 Feb 1 Mondrian Dies
Piet Mondrian died of pneumonia on February 1, 1944 and was interred in the Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. On 3 February 1944, a memorial, attended by nearly 200, was he...