After 77 years, they discovered that a painting by Mondrian was hanging upside down

Officials at a museum in the German city of Dusseldorf have discovered that a painting displayed at the site by Dutch abstract painter Piet Mondrian, has been hanging the wrong way for 77 years.

A major retrospective of the Dutch painter was launched on Saturday at the Kunsthalleung Museum, including among its highlights the display of “New York City 1,” completed in 1941.

But the museum revealed this week that the painting has been hanging upside down for decades at the site.

“In a picture from 1944, I saw that the painting was hanging in the opposite direction,” exhibition curator Susanne Meyer-Busser told the German newspaper “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, according to AFP.

The painting, consisting of red, yellow and blue lines intersecting at right angles, was then shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art in New York “the following year”, wrongly, according to Meyer Poser.

When it was sent to the German Museum Düsseldorf in 1980, the painting was rearranged in the same way.

According to Mayer Bosser, the error may be due to the fact that “the painting does not have a signature,” according to AFP.

The direction of its display was therefore determined by reference to “the artist’s name engraved on the back of the frame by the benefactor”, at the time of Mondrian’s death in 1944.

Born in 1872, Piet Mondrian is a key figure in the Dutch art movement called “Style” De Stijl, known for its horizontal and vertical lines and primary colours.

In 1940, the painter left for New York. The rectilinear grids in his paintings were inspired by the planning of the American city and its skyscrapers.

He is world famous for his painting “Victory Boogie Woogie”, considered one of the most important works of art of the twentieth century.