La Prairie Announces Patronage Of Piet Mondrian Conservation Project With Fondation…

La Prairie, the luxury Swiss luxury skincare brand, has announced its patronage of a conservation project of 4 works by contemporary painter Piet Mondrian through Switzerland’s most visited and prestigious art museum, Fondation Beyeler. 

The Piet Mondrian Conservation Project engages the Fondation’s Managing Director Ulrike Erbslöh, Chief Conservator Markus Gross, curator Ulf Küster, and their teams towards the preservation of these important pieces of art.

The Dutch artist best known for his abstract and graphic work comprising of blocks of bright, primary colors and stark whites sat within grids of black-bordered parallelograms, Mondrian was a pioneer of 20th century abstract art and is widely considered one of the most well-known artists of the period.

When asked to describe the most distinct features of Mondrian’s work, Küster explains, “The rectangle, the line, the three primary colors and the two colors or non-colors from the extremes of the color spectrum, namely white and black. His works consists of color and line yet it isn’t entirely spontaneous.”

La Prairie has long had a relationship with the arts, the most obvious of which is the iconic blue color of the brand created by the artist Niki de Saint Phalle. In more recent times, it’s their partnership with the contemporary art fair, Art Basel, for the annual shows in Basel, Miami, and Hong Kong, which exhibits the company’s continued support of the art world. For each edition of the fair, La Prairie commissions an artist to create an original piece and that process, along with the ultimate work, act as a creative metaphor of the brand’s values which have kinship to art—both share a mutual search for perfection, the desire to break codes, the desire to deliver surprise and inspiration, and an emphasis on beauty with the final desire being to create something timeless.

In those respects, Mondrian is an appropriate alignment for the brand as the artist is known for pushing the boundaries of contemporary art to create a visual language that has withstood the test of time. “Works by a master like Piet Mondrian hide a lot in the details. A line is not simply a line, a color field is not a flat color field. There is much more behind it,” says Gross. The artist’s work also echoes the skincare brand’s own appreciation for clean lines and a minimal, yet impactful, aesthetic.

The Fondation Beyeler has one of the most comprehensive collections of paintings by Mondrian in Switzerland and their collection also includes over 400 post-Impressionist, Classical Modern, and Contemporary works.

“We are planning a large Piet Mondrian exhibition in 2022. These two factors combined gave the impulse to launch a Piet Mondrian research and conservation project from 2019 to 2021. While each painting will be considered independently, the objective is also be to treat these works as a group regarding the way they are displayed and presented,” explains Gross.

In addition to the conservation project, which will take two years to complete, La Prairie is documenting the process, employing an experimental approach to art communication with the launch of a digital content series called The Art Journal on LaPrairie.com. The Art Journal will document the conservation process through its various stages, something which has typically kept behind the scenes.

Conserving artwork is an exact task which requires very specific knowledge, skills, science and technology to reach the sort of results which preserves the work without actually disturbing it. The Art Journal documents this voyage while celebrating the grandeur of minimalism and exploring the details—inspiration, process, practices, and rituals—that made Mondrian one of the major patriarchs of 20th Century art.

“Physically, mankind needs something to eat. Spiritually or psychologically, mankind needs culture, because culture defines what’s so different with humans in comparison for example with animals,” says Küster. “We have to take care of our culture and of our cultural heritage in order to stay human.”