In 1942 Arnold Newman portrayed the painter Piet Mondrian in his studio on 353 East 56th Street. The front room was unfurnished except for an easel and a drawing board. Mondrian had whitewashed the walls and hung square pieces of paper coloured red, yellow, and blue on them. ‘It was otherwise too inhospitable,’ he remarked. Mondrian has rarely been portrayed in a such a cool and distant fashion.