Parallel lives

Piet Mondrian found fame with his grid-like paintings. But a reappraisal of little-known British artist Marlow Moss repositions her influence on his work

- Joanna Moorhead

In 1972, the Kunstmuseum in the Hague bought three paintings by a little known British artist called Marlow Moss. The gallery was keen to show the influence of Piet Mondrian - the famous Dutch painter acclaimed for his black grids lit with bold blues and brash yellows - on such lowly also-rans as Moss.

Yet, should you visit the Kunstmuseum today, you’ll find the Moss works positioned front and centre, while a similar piece by the great Mondrian is hidden behind a pillar. Why the volte-face? Because it is now widely recognised that it was as much Moss who influenced Mondrian as the other way round, at least when it came to the double or parallel lines he started using in the 1930s to add tension to his harmonious abstract paintings, one of which sold last May for $48m.

Seven decades after her death in Cornwall at the age of 69, Moss is enjoying a major reappraisal. As well as the exhibition of her paintings and sketches in the Kunstmuseum, her sculpture will go on show. Last year, meanwhile, her 1944 work White, Black, Blue and Red fetched £609,000 ($820,000) at Sotheby’s in London, a record for her work at auction.

It’s an extraordinary turnaround for an artist shunned by much of the art world in her lifetime.