Mondrian’s American heirs claim the painting

The painting, which is worth around $ 100 million, according to the indictment, was purchased in 1939 by collector AE Gallatin. He bought it from the Buchholz Gallery in New York, an art dealer who most often sold works of art stolen by the Nazis. Gallatin has shown the work, with the help and approval of Mondrian, in its exhibition space at New York University. In 1952, Gallavin donated the canvas to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, along with much of the rest of his collection.

Artist friend

Mondrian, who died in New York in 1944, never objected to Gallatin’s ownership of the painting. The Dutch artist named his friend and fellow artist Harry Holtzman his only heir. Holtzman also owns the property of Composition with blue never discussed. Holtzman died in 1987. His daughter Madeline would now claim the painting.

Mondrian completed the painting in 1926. Almost immediately afterwards it was included in the collection of the Hanover Museum. There the Nazis confiscated the painting in 1937, to include it that same year in their infamous exhibition of Degenerate art (“Degenerate art”).

Soon after, Mondrian fled mainland Europe for Great Britain, and in 1939 he was Composition with blue sold by the Nazis at the Buchholz Gallery in Berlin. Buchholz was one of the four dealers preferred by German authorities to sell seized works of art.