Story of the day: Artist’s painting hung upside down in museums for 77 years

Piet Mondrian’s painting “New York City I”, written in 1941, hung upside down in museums around the world for 77 years. Yes, from the moment it was first released to the public. The Guardian writes about it.

The painting first appeared at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1945, then ended up in Düsseldorf. And it turned out to be among the artworks belonging to the North Rhine-Westphalia Art Collection.

At this time, 77 years later, Susanne Meyer-Buser began preparations for a new exhibition and drew attention to the features of the canvas, meaning that the painting was hanging upside down.

The painting depicts an abstraction of the New York cityscape, multicolored ribbons affixed to the canvas. “The side where the ribbons are closest to each other should be at the top of the picture. It’s like a dark sky,” said Meyer-Buser.

The Guardian confirmed the words of the curator of the exhibition. Yes, the publisher reports, this is how the work is depicted in a photograph of Mondrian’s workshop, taken a few days after his death and published in Town and Country magazine in June 1944. Unfortunately, the editors don’t provide the image for the photo itself (it’s also not publicly available).

But the story does not end there because there is another image. I found a painting of the same size called “New York City” on display at the Pompidou Center in Paris. The only difference between the artifact is that it was made in oil without the use of tape. However, it was not signed by the artist.

It is reported that the work will continue to be shown to the public as it has been hanging for 77 years. “The adhesive tapes are loose, hanging by a thread,” Meyer-Buser said. He also added that you can “lose” if you flip the picture. “If the canvas is turned upside down, the force of gravity pulls everything depicted on it after it. And now it’s part of the painting’s story.”