The star of Christie’s 20th/21st Century Evening Sale in London on October 14 during Frieze Week is Piet Mondrian’s Composition III (1920). The work is coming to auction for the first time and is estimated to fetch between £20 million to £30 million ($27.26 million to $40.89 million).
Composition III (1920) arrives at auction by way of a private collector. The artwork was previously owned by American architect and collector of modernism Armand P. Bartos and his wife Celeste from 1952 to 1973.
“We are delighted to celebrate Mondrian’s extraordinary legacy and present his masterpiece from 1920, Composition III, in London, where another key work from this pivotal year resides, in the collection of the Tate,” said Keith Gill, vice chairman of 20th/21st century art at Christie’s. “Composition III dates from the breakthrough moment in Mondrian’s career, in which he reached a new, radical abstract idiom that profoundly reshaped the language of modern art. Appearing at auction for the first time in its history, it ranks among the most important and rarest of his paintings ever to come to market.”
The last time Christie’s had their hands on more than one piece by Mondrian was in 2009 from the collection of fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent and his business partner Pierre Bergé, which included Composition avec bleu, rouge, jaune et noir (1922) and Composition I (1920) selling for $27.9 million (estimated between $7 million and $10 million) and $9 million (estimated between $5 million to $7 million), respectively.
In 2022, Sotheby’s sold Mondrian’s Composition No. II (1930) at auction for $51 million in New York, a record sum for the Dutch painter’s work to date. In 2025, Christie’s sold the artist’s Composition with Large Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Black and Blue (1922) at auction in New York for $47.6 million inclusive of fees from the Leonard & Louise Riggio: Collected Works sale.
