The art world are shocked after a curator revealed that a Mondrian painting has been displayed in different galleries upside down for 75 years- and no one had any idea.
Dutch artist Piet Mondrian created the picture, New York City I, in 1941 and it was placed in MoMA in New York in 1945 but it has been at North Rhine-Westphalia in Dusseldorf since 1980.
The design comprises of red, yellow, black and blue adhesive tapes which form a lattice and has multicoloured lines thickening at the bottom in a simplified skyline.
But it should actually be hung so that the thickening of the grid is at the top, like a dark sky, according to curator Susanne Meyer-Büser, speaking at a press conference.
The design comprises of red, yellow, black and blue adhesive tapes which form a lattice and has multicoloured lines thickening at the bottom in a simplified skyline (left). But it should actually be hung so that the thickening of the grid is at the top (right), like a dark sky, according to curator Susanne Meyer-Büser, speaking at a press conference
The curator made the discovery as she was researching the museum’s new show on Mondrian earlier this year. Pictured: Two men look at the painting in 2007
The curator made the discovery as she was researching the museum’s new show on Mondrian earlier this year.
Susanne said that the other curators realised as soon as she showed them and she added that she is ‘100% certain’ the picture is topsy turvy.
Evidence pointing to the fact that it is hung wrong includes an image of Mondrian’s studio, which shows the picture on an easel the other way up.
The photograph is from 1944 and appeared in Town and Country, taken a few days after the abstract artist died and the painting is the orientation that Susanne believes is correct.
Also, there is another painting by Mondrian, called New York City, which has the thickening of the lines at the top and is on display at Centre Pompidou in Paris.
Susanne, pictured, said that the other curators realised as soon as she showed them and she added that she is ‘100% certain’ the picture is topsy turvy
Evidence pointing to the fact that it is hung wrong includes an image of Mondrian’s studio, which shows the picture on an easel the other way up. Pictured: A camera man films the painting today
Speaking of how New York City I was designed, Meyer-Büser said that she believes intricate layering was likely put at the top of the frame and Mondrian then worked his way down.
Meyer-Büser believes that the act of weaving together the strips of tape over one another would have been more difficult from the bottom up.
She added that some of the yellow lines stop a few millimetres short of the bottom edge, something which may have occurred as he was working from top to bottom.
The curator also said that the tape at the top of the picture is torn and it has been suggested the image may have been mistakenly turned round as soon as 1945.
Curators are unsure how exactly the mistake was made but Meyer Büser suggested that the painting may have been taken out of its box wrong or transported incorrectly.
But curators are never going to know what actually happened and the image does not have Mondrian’s signature on it, which means he may not have actually finished it.
Speaking of how New York City I was designed, Meyer-Büser, pictured, said that she believes intricate layering was likely put at the top of the frame and Mondrian then worked his way down
Although the error has been uncovered, the painting will be shown as it always has been, because it is fragile.
Meyer-Buser said of its exhibition at the Mondrian. Evolution show which starts in Dusseldorf on Saturday: ‘The adhesive tapes are already extremely loose and hanging by a thread.
‘If you were to turn it upside down now, gravity would pull it into another direction. And it’s now part of the work’s story.’
Its not the first time that a painting has been displayed wrong, particularly an abstract one.
Matisse’s Le Bateau was placed upside down for 47 days at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1961 until a stockbroker called Genevieve Habert went into the exhibition and showed the curators the error.
It was a mistake that was also missed by 116,000 visitors and Matisse’s son Pierre.
But curators were sceptical about Habert’s admission, also uncovered after she looked at a catalogue, until she revealed to the New York Times that she had seen the error.
It was only then that MoMA staff actually turned the image the correct way, realising the error of their ways.
Matisse’s son was overjoyed, telling the Times that Habert should be ‘given a medal.’