Diederick van Kleef

Mondrian and van Kleef, a quest for kinship

When Van Kleef heard that his hero Piet Mondrian continued to make corrections / improvements to his paintings, this gave him the idea to look at Mondrian's oeuvre and development with a renewed open mind.

The initial commitment and challenge, was; "Continue where Mondrian had not got around to."

This led to a twelve-year study instigated by a sense of collegial kinship and the desire to artistically understand this kinship.

By empathizing 'as an actor' in the imagination, intention, internalization and externalization of his benchmark, van Kleef culminates in sublimated painting.

Where Mondrian developed from a neo-plasticist to a utopian abstract realist, van Kleef distilled, as the crux of his research, Mondriaan the intuitive painter.

In 1986 Diederick van Kleef was awarded the Dutch Royal painter’s prize – De Koninklijke Schildersprijs.

Frank Taal Galerie, 2020