A work of art has been hanging upside down – for over 75 years.
New York City I is one of Dutch abstract artist Piet Mondrian’s most important works, but experts now believe it’s been the wrong way for decades.
Despite the realization, it will remain so in case the strips used in the work come off.
The image was created in 1941 and first exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1945.
Since 1980 it has hung in the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen art collection in Düsseldorf, Germany.
At an event for the artist’s anniversary exhibition, curator Susanne Meyer-Buser spoke about the history of the work – which uses red, yellow, blue and black adhesive strips – then stunned the audience by revealing his secret.
She said she came across a photo of Mondrian’s studio, taken a few days after his death in 1944, and the photo could be seen on the easel in a different orientation: the denser stripes on the top edge .
“The grid thickening should be up high, like a dark sky,” she told the Guardian.
“Once I pointed it out to the other curators, we realized it was very obvious. I’m 100% certain the photo is the wrong way up.”
Mondrian, born in the Netherlands in 1872, is considered one of the greatest artists of the 20th century.
