Piet Mondrian

Hello, my name is Piet Mondrian. I was born on March 7th, 1872, in a beautiful country called the Netherlands. Ever since I was a little boy, I loved to draw and paint. It was a wonderful way to grow up because my father and my uncle were both artists. They saw how much I loved making pictures and always encouraged me to create. They taught me how to look closely at the world and put what I saw onto paper or canvas. With their help, art became my favorite thing to do, and I knew it was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

When I first started as an artist, I painted the world around me. In the Dutch countryside where I lived, there were so many lovely things to see. I would paint tall windmills with their big arms turning in the breeze, calm rivers that flowed gently through the fields, and tall, leafy trees that reached for the sky. My paintings looked very realistic, which means they looked just like the real thing. For many years, I enjoyed making pictures of what I saw, but after a while, I started to feel that I wanted to try something completely new and different.

Around the year 1911, I moved to the big, exciting city of Paris. The art I saw there was not like anything I had seen before. It made me think about painting in a brand new way. I had a big idea! I wanted to create paintings that showed a feeling of balance and perfect harmony using only the simplest things. Instead of painting trees and rivers, I decided to use only straight lines that went up and down or across. For colors, I chose to use only the primary colors—red, yellow, and blue—along with black, white, and gray. I started creating this new style around 1917 and called it Neoplasticism.

My life took another exciting turn in 1940 when I moved to New York City. The city was so full of energy. I loved the bright lights that sparkled everywhere, the super tall buildings that seemed to touch the clouds, and the fun, lively boogie-woogie music I heard. All of this energy inspired my paintings. One of my most famous paintings from this time is called 'Broadway Boogie Woogie.' If you look at it, you can see it is full of little flashing blocks of color that look like they are dancing, just like the city itself.

I lived to be 71 years old. Today, people remember me for creating a whole new kind of abstract art. My simple, colorful grids showed the world that you can find beauty and order in straight lines and bright colors. I am happy that my work continues to inspire artists, architects, and designers all over the world.