SelfMadeHero Mondrian: A Better World

A portrait of the world-famous Dutch artist Piet Mondrian in his twilight years in exile, as he traveled from Paris to London to New York to flee the rise of fascism in Europe Everyone will recognize the work of Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), the Dutch painter who divided the world into geometric patterns of primary colors organized within rigidly straight black lines. But who remembers his great love of music and dance or his eccentric devotion to an art of balance and harmony as a blueprint for a better world? Until his dying day, Mondrian never gave up his quest to bring light and color into the darkening shadows of the 20th century. InMondrian: A Better World, Mondrian's fellow countryman Erik de Graaf traces the last 11 years of his life--as both an exile from war and an increasingly acclaimed visionary modernist--following him from Paris to London and New York as the rise of fascism threatens to engulf the ideal world of which he constantly dreamed.