Expositie Mondrian Figuratif
Leo Jansen en Wietse Coppes schreven een uitgebreid Engelstalig artikel over Mondriaan en zijn vriend Sal Slijper. Het is gepubliceerd in de expositiecatalogus van de expositie Mondrian Figuratif in Musée Marmottan Monet in Parijs.
Leo Jansen en Wietse Coppes (conservator RKD) schreven een (Engelstalig) artikel voor de expositiecatalogus van de expositie Mondrian Figuratif. Het uitgebreide artikel gaat over de relatie tussen Mondriaan en zijn vriend Sal Slijper, die een grote verzameling Mondriaans verwierf en naliet aan het Kunstmuseum Den Haag. Het artikel is gebaseerd op de briefwisseling tussen Slijper en Mondriaan. In het essay laten Leo en Wietse zien dat hoewel het beeld van een hechte, warme vriendschap dat Slijper presenteerde, misschien een goed bedoeld eerbetoon was aan zijn vriend, het toch vooral gebaseerd was op een idealisatie.
Een paar fragmenten
Slijper wrote: “I had a little difficulty getting used to the first painting by Mondrian that I saw . . . for it was the first abstract painting I had ever seen . . . or had ever even heard of. After six weeks I noticed that the painting had had an effect on me, for I looked with less and less pleasure at ‘ordinary’ paintings, which I had enjoyed up to that point. It took years for me to realize what it was that attracted me. It must have been Mondrian’s unyielding effort to fathom the very depths of existence.”
Slijper said it took some persuading before he was allowed to buy his first painting from Mondrian. The artist was not looking for “charity” and he wanted to be sure that Slijper actually cared about the work itself. The first piece he bought was a naturalistic work depicting a windmill or a farmhouse — this is not clear — and he seems to have liked it, as he soon bought more. Slijper was later accused of acquiring work by Mondrian for very little money. He dismissed this as a lack of commercial spirit on the part of the artist: “He was no merchant, he always asked much too little. I acquired that first painting for a trifle.” At any rate, the many works he sold to Slijper did Mondrian a great service at a time when he barely earned enough to keep his head above water.
It was a relief to Mondrian to have found a buyer for large numbers of works from an earlier phase of his artistic development. For although the older works were “inwardly the same,” Mondrian valued his recent work more highly, in which he felt the “outward” and “inward” were in better balance. He hoped to interest renowned collectors — which at this point certainly did not include Slijper — in his new work.
De catalogus kan je hier kopen.
Mondrian Figuratif
De expositie is te zien in het Musée Marmottan Monet in Parijs en is gewijd aan het figuratieve werk van Piet Mondriaan. Een bijzondere tentoonstelling, juist omdat Mondriaan bekendheid verwierf met zijn abstracte kunst en zijn lidmaatschap van ‘De Stijl’. De expositie Mondrian Figuratif in Musée Marmottan Monet duurt tot en met 26 januari 2020.
