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Provenance
The war still requires a transfer: Mondrian leaves London and with the support of his friend Henry Holtzman, in October 1940 he lands in New York bringing with him many works including (B285) Composition of red and white: nom I In 1941 Emery Muscetra made a small photo shoot in the Mondrian studio; in three photographs, at the bottom right, the painting still appears in his First State. (6, 7, 8) At the end of 1941, in preparation for the first personal exhibition in the USA at the Valentine Gallery, Mondrian intervenes on the painting by making some small but substantial changes: he reduces the thickness of some lines, extends one and adds another immediately above, and inserts a small blue area at the bottom right and three small red “tiles” free to move along the extreme edges of the canvas. A solution that gives the work an incredible charm and a vibrant rhythm. So completed, the work was exhibited by Dudensing between January and February 1942. Thus was born (B313) Composition No. 4, 1938-42, with Red and Blue. (9) Around the end of 1942, the painting in the First State is reproduced in an article by Felix Kraus entitled “Mondriaan, a Great Modern Dutch Painter”, in Knickerbocker Weekly magazine no. 30 of 21 September.
in exhibition catalog 50 years of Mondrian, Sideny Janis Gallery 1953
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in Decision n5-6, Nov-Dec 1941, School of Paris comes to US by Sidney Janis
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Provenance
After the exhibition at the Valentine Gallery, a void is created in the history of the painting, until 1951 when the work enters the collection of the Sidney Janis Gallery, which, the same year, will sell it to Mr. and Mrs. William A. M. Burden. In 1954 the work appears in a small photo published in Vogue magazine in the June 1 issue, in the article Modern Setting, the apartment of Mr. William A. M. Burden, President of the New York’s Museum of Modern Art. (Annex 1) In 1957 Sidney Janis bought the painting again, and then sold it in 1958 to Arnold Maremont where it remained until 1972. Through the art dealer Eugene Victor Thaw, in the same year it will be acquired by the Saint Louis Art Museum (through funds donated by friends of the Museum), where its kept until today.
