A Mondrian Mistake

Viewers have to turn their heads to look at the artwork shown above the way the artist intended. That’s because this 1941 work, titled New York City I, by Dutch artist Piet Mondrian hangs upside down—and it’s been this way for 75 years!

The work is a grid of tape on a canvas. It’s part of an important art collection in Germany. A curator for the collection, Susanne Meyer-Büser, realized the art was displayed upside down while researching it. “The thickening of the grid should be at the top, like a dark sky,” Meyer-Büser says. “Once I pointed it out to the other curators, we realized it was very obvious. I am 100 percent certain the picture is the wrong way around.”

A similar Mondrian painting, New York City, supports this theory. It has the same arrangement of lines at the top. A photo of the artist’s studio also reveals New York City I on an easel displayed the opposite way. So how did this happen? Meyer-Büser suspects it could have been a mistake made in transit or an error when the art was removed from its crate.

Curators must decide what to do. But they’re hesitant to change its orientation. “The adhesive tapes are already extremely loose and hanging by a thread,” says Meyer-Büser. “If you were to turn it upside down now, gravity would pull it into another direction.” This could cause irreparable damage. Meyer-Büser thinks the painting should remain as it is because the mistake has become part of the art’s story.