A Corner of Mondrian’s Studio with Bed, Stool, Curtain, and Mirrors. Photo: André Kertész, 1926. Gelatin silver print. © The Estate of André Kertész / Higher Pictures
“In 1921 he moved to the rue du Départ, a street beside the Gare Montparnasse, renting two rooms connected by a hallway and steps. These were a small room where he cooked and slept, and the studio proper. In the bedroom-cum-kitchen, screened by a curtain, were the necessities of living: Mondrian’s spartan cooking implements and toilet articles. Visitors and friends recalled that soft-porn pin-up pictures of nude or semi-nude girls were pinned above the bed. All such representational images, however, were strictly banished from the studio.”—The principled asceticism of Piet Mondrian (Paul Overy, De Stijl)