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January 12, 2026
‘Her time has come’: did Mondrian owe his success to a cross-dressing lesbian artist who lived in a Cornish cove?
Piet Mondrian found fame, fortune and glory with his grid-like paintings lit with basic colours. But did many of his ideas come from Marlow Moss? Our writer celebrates an extraordinary British talent who died in obscurity
TL;DR
- Marlow Moss's art, particularly her use of parallel lines, is now recognized as having influenced Piet Mondrian's work.
- The Kunstmuseum in The Hague, which once displayed Moss's work as secondary to Mondrian's, now prominently features her art.
- Moss is experiencing a major revival with exhibitions in The Hague and Berlin, and her work setting auction records.
- Her artistic career included being part of the avant-garde Abstraction-Creation group in Paris, where she met Mondrian.
- Moss and her partner, Netty Nijhoff, lived unconventionally, often wearing men's attire, and faced mixed reactions in Paris.
- Art historians are shifting focus from 'who did it first?' to understanding the interchange of knowledge between artists like Moss and Mondrian.
- Some LGBTQ+ commentators interpret Moss's double-line technique as a potential expression of her search for freedom as a queer woman.
- A significant discovery of a suitcase full of Moss's sketches has provided new insights into her methodical and mathematical approach to art, contrasting with Mondrian's more intuitive style.
- The renewed focus on Moss is contributing to a broader reframing of art history, moving away from a singular focus on male geniuses to a more inclusive and enriched narrative.
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