It was a family secret for years: a real Mondrian, a portrait of Draaijer’s great-great-grandmother, hung in the living room of Nick Draaijer’s grandmother (32). When the writer decided to investigate the history of the portrait, he discovered two unknown portraits of Mondrian.
These are portraits of a girl and a boy, Bets and Nicolaas, children of Draaijer’s great-great grandfather Cees Bergman. These children’s portraits are in private collections in the Netherlands. In his search, Draaijer also found a portrait that was only known from a black-and-white photo, and he was able to identify the person portrayed in another work. This also concerns children of Cees Bergman.
In his book Mondrian’s secret portraits Draaijer describes the bond between his great-great-grandfather Cornelis ‘Cees’ Bergman and Mondriaan. Without historiographical experience, but with ‘curiosity as a compass’, Draaijer sought out distant relatives and Mondriaan experts for his research, searched through archives and family albums, read letters, manuscripts and literature about art.
misfits
Mondriaan expert Wietse Coppes, art historian and curator at the Netherlands Institute for Art History (RKD) is surprised by the find: ‘Children’s portraits are outsiders in Mondrian’s oeuvre. Because the chimney had to smoke, he did make a lot of portraits, which he found annoying, because ‘it always had to be to the taste of the people’, in his words. But for a good friend, he probably put more love into it. You can see that attention in these works: they are less rigid and formal.’
Coppes calls the friendship between Bergman and Mondriaan the most important new insight: ‘This research confirms that this friendship was stronger than previously thought. And the more you know about someone, the better you understand their work. Mondrian is often portrayed as a lonely hermit, but it turns out to be the opposite: he easily maintained warm friendships.’
Unknown watercolor
Since Mondriaan’s online catalog raisonné was published three years ago, seven ‘new’ works have been discovered, including these children’s portraits. The RKD will present one of the other discoveries on Monday: a watercolor of two barn doors in Brabant. The RKD discovered the work of art after the Swedish auction house Bukowskis approached the institute to investigate whether the (signed) work really belonged to Mondriaan.
The work of art was in the possession of relatives of Greta Heijbroek, to whom Mondrian was briefly engaged at the beginning of the last century. In 1904 Mondriaan stayed all year round in the Brabant village of Uden, at the invitation of a friend. He probably painted these barn doors in Nistelrode. The discovered watercolor will be auctioned in Stockholm in May. Later this ‘Mondriaan Year’, the RKD will present an updated digital catalog raisonné of the artist.
Nick Turner: Mondrian’s secret portraits† Pluim Publishers; 376 pages; €25.99.
