New York City (version 3)

This energetic grid painting represents Mondrian's love letter to New York City, where he spent the final years of his life after fleeing war-torn Europe in 1940. The Dutch artist was captivated by the city's rhythm, its jazz music, and the way the streets formed a geometric pattern when seen from above. You can almost feel the pulse of Manhattan in these interlocking lines of yellow, red, and blue that seem to vibrate across the canvas like traffic moving through a bustling grid of avenues and streets.

Mondrian abandoned his signature thick black lines here, replacing them with strips of bright color that create a more dynamic, almost musical quality. The painting marks a dramatic shift from his earlier, calmer compositions. He worked on several versions of this theme, constantly refining and reworking them until his death in 1944. There's something joyful and optimistic about this piece, despite being created during World War II. It captures the energy of a city that represented freedom and new beginnings for an artist reinventing himself in his seventies.