Mondrian Abstract Could Sell for More Than $30M at Christie's

Christie’s will offer a pivotal early work by Mondrian that has never appeared at auction. Titled Composition III (1920), the geometric abstraction has a $27m–$40.5m estimate.

Viewings are scheduled in Zurich and Paris in September, as well as New York and Hong Kong, before the painting arrives in London in time for the auction on October 14, during Frieze Week. The work comes from the collection of architect Armand P. Bartos and his wife, Celeste.

At the 1983 sale of works from the Bartoses’ collection at Christie’s, the Dutch artist’s Composition No. II (1930) was bought by a Japanese bank for more than $2m, then a record for Mondrian and for abstract art. In 2022, the same work sold for $51m at Sotheby’s, again setting a record for the artist.

Composition III is central to Mondrian’s development of radically modern abstraction. Christie’s vice chairman of 20th/21st-century art, Keith Gill, said: “The painting dates from the breakthrough moment in Mondrian’s career,” adding that the work's first appearance at auction highlights its rarity.