Dutch 1872-1944 Piet Mondrian Location was a Dutch painter. He was an important contributor to the De Stijl art movement and group, which was founded by Theo van Doesburg. He evolved a non-representational form which he termed Neo-Plasticism. This consisted of a grid of vertical and horizontal black lines and the use of the three primary colours. When 47-year-old Piet Mondrian left his artistically conservative native Holland for unfettered Paris for the second and last time in 1919, he set about at once to make his studio a nurturing environment for paintings he had in mind that would increasingly express the principles of Neo-Plasticism about which he had been writing for two years. To hide the studio's structural flaws quickly and inexpensively, he tacked up large rectangular placards, each in a single color or neutral hue. Smaller colored paper squares and rectangles, composed together, accented the walls. Then came an intense period of painting. Then again he addressed the walls, repositioning the colored cutouts, adding to their number, altering the dynamics of color and space, producing new tensions and equilibrium. Before long, he had established a creative schedule in which a period of painting took turns with a period of experimentally regrouping the smaller papers on the walls, a process that directly fed the next period of painting. It was a pattern he followed for the rest of his life, through wartime moves from Paris to London??s Hampstead in 1938 and 1940, across the Atlantic to Manhattan. At 71 in the fall of 1943, Mondrian moved into his second and final New York studio at 15 East 59th Street, and set about again to create the environment he had learned over the years was most congenial to his modest way of life and most stimulating to his art. He painted the high walls the same off-white he used on his easel and on the seats, tables and storage cases he designed and fashioned meticulously from discarded orange and apple-crates. He glossed the top of a white metal stool in the same brilliant primary red he applied to the cardboard sheath he made for the radio-phonograph that spilled forth his beloved jazz from well-traveled records, Visitors to this last studio seldom saw more than one or two new canvases, but found, often to their astonishment, that eight large compositions of colored bits of paper he had tacked and re-tacked to the walls in ever-changing relationships constituted together an environment that, paradoxically and simultaneously, was both kinetic and serene, stimulating and restful. It was the best space, Mondrian said, that he had ever inhabited. Tragically, he was there for only a few months: he died of pneumonia in February 1944.  Related Paintings of Piet Mondrian :. | Red tree | Landscape | Eucalyptus tree | The setting sun | Conformation |
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Douglas Volk
1856-1935 Douglas Volk (1856 - 1935) was an American portrait painter and the son of noted sculptor Leonard Volk. He was named after his mother's cousin (Abraham Lincoln's political rival) Stephen A. Douglas.
NAIVEU, Matthijs
Dutch painter (1647-1726) Dutch painter. He was the son of a wine merchant from Rotterdam and began his training with Abraham Toorenvliet (c. 1620-92), a glass painter and drawing master in Leiden. From 1667 to 1669 Naiveu was apprenticed to the Leiden 'Fine' painter Gerrit Dou, who received 100 guilders a year (an exceptionally high sum) for instructing Naiveu. In 1671 Naiveu entered the Leiden Guild of St Luke, of which he became the head in 1677 and again in 1678, the year in which he moved to Amsterdam, where he was later appointed hop inspector. This work did not prevent him producing a considerable number of paintings; the earliest known work by Naiveu is dated 1668, the latest 1721.
Joel Pettersson
(June 8, 1892 - January 5, 1937) was a painter and writer on the Åland Islands, Finland. He remained an obscure figure during his lifetime; most of his works were unpublished for decades after his death. Pettersson was born into poverty in Lemland, Åland. His parents were elderly peasants, Joel's father being well over 50 at the time of Joel's birth. Joel had a younger brother Karl, who died at sea in 1916. Pettersson began writing and painting in his early school years, though much of his works from this period were not preserved. In 1913, he had the opportunity to study at a drawing school in Turku. He stayed in Turku until 1915, when he decided to abort his studies and return to Åland. He painted for a few years, but he eventually tired of it and did not paint for many years. Upon his return, Pettersson became active in the local youth organisation, for which he wrote plays and monologues. He also wrote prose which he read out loud during organisation meetings. Pettersson was most active as a writer following his return from Turku until 1921. During the 1920s, Pettersson worked mostly on his parents' farm, only sporadically participating in the youth organisation's activities. His parents both died in 1928, leaving Pettersson to care for the farm. He sold all the animals and most of the property. He tried earning a living on his artistry, but was unsuccessful. He then tried raising hens, but this also proved to be an unsuccessful venture. He resumed painting in 1935, and some of his paintings were displayed during an exhibition the following year. His constant economic difficulties and work load took their toll. In 1936, he suffered a nervous breakdown and was committed to Grelsby Asylum, where he remained until his death in early 1937.