SUBSTACK: YSL's 1965 Autumn/Winter Couture Mondrian Collection
On how the prolific artist's visual cadre became a cultural staple of fashion and design.
11.18.24 for Absolument !, my Substack channel
Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan AKA Piet Mondrian is—who I’d say—one of the most internationally recognized modern artists. I think if I were to ask anyone if they knew the name of any modern painters, they’d probably say either: Picasso, Dalí, or Mondrian. Maybe Matisse can be thrown in there too! Even if someone doesn’t know Mondrian by name directly, I’m sure many could likely recall in their visual memory the paintings made of yellow, blue, white, and red squares framed by black lines in various compositions.
A 1937 press release from MoMA claimed him as “now generally considered the foremost living master of abstract geometrical design in painting.” Another release commended him for “greatly simplifying his style until he had reduced it to a few straight black lines bounding white rectangles with an occasional area of pure red, blue, or yellow.” He became memorable fast and remained in the top rankings of art.
In the minds of the general public, why did Mondrian’s geometric, primary color-hued blocking stick better than Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square or Ellsworth Kelly’s color-soaked canvases? Did fashion have anything to do with it? More specifically: do we have YSL to thank for Piet’s lasting iconographic popularity?