Mondrian’s landmark painting heads to auction in London
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Piet Mondrian’s Composition III, painted in 1920, will be offered for sale by Christie’s in London on October 14, 2026.
The painting comes from a pivotal year in Mondrian’s development of geometric abstraction and Neo-Plasticism, a style he believed could express universal balance through simple forms.
After returning to Paris from the Netherlands following World War I, Mondrian reconnected with avant-garde artists and began to refine his visual language, moving toward the use of primary colors, black lines, and white space. Christie’s describes Composition III as a defining work from this breakthrough period, noting its rarity as it has never before been offered at auction. The painting’s provenance includes a previous owner, architect Armand P. Bartos, and his wife, Celeste Bartos.
Several paintings from this same period by Mondrian are now held in major museums, including Tate in London, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Mondrian’s 1920 works demonstrate a shift in his technique. He moved away from strictly geometric methods, instead using dark lines to divide canvases into asymmetrical rectangles of color. The artist painstakingly built up layers of paint, allowing each to dry before reassessing the balance of the composition.
Christie’s estimates the painting will sell for between £20 million and £30 million, approximately $27 million to $41 million, and will tour internationally before the auction.
