Mondrian’s house on Ruysdaelkade

Name: Piet Mondrian lives on the Ruysdaelkade in Amsterdam
Address: Ruysdaelkade 75, Amsterdam

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With the help of historical material and walking or cycling routes you can now literally follow in the footsteps of Mondrian. Discover how he traveled to the countryside to paint landscapes, how the Zeeland light and Brabant farms inspired him, how he was interested in music and dancing, which friends he made and which places he liked to visit.

About the Gifted Art Foundation's mission

The website was developed by the Gifted Art Foundation. The Gifted Art Foundation is a Dutch foundation that supports cultural projects in the field of 19th and 20th century Dutch art and aims to bring art closer to the public: the Mondriaan Route propagates this. It is the second project that the foundation itself has initiated. Previously, they developed Van Gogh Route.

The Mondriaan Route was created in collaboration with the Kunstmuseum Den Haag and the RKD - Netherlands Institute for Art History. We are still working on the website and are continuing to build on technical components and content. We are therefore very curious about feedback. We would like to hear your experiences via info@mondrianroute.com.

Ruysdaelkade 75, Amsterdam

I lived on Ruysdaelkade in the spring and summer of 1895.

In spring 1895 Piet Mondrian had to move out of his lodgings on Kalverstraat. Fortunately, he found a new place in a house above a bar at Ruysdaelkade 75, at the corner of Daniël Stalpertstraat, where his brother Willem Frederik had lived for a few months earlier that year. The house was in the lively, relatively new working-class neighbourhood De Pijp, then known as the YY district. The area was on the city’s fringes and was home to many students, artists and prostitutes.

Ruysdaelkade with the house of Mondriaan as third building from the left (corner house)

An inspiring view

Out his window Mondrian could see the Boerenwetering canal, the wharf of the Royal Wax Candle Factory, and the J.H. Haag & Zoon furniture factory. The imposing Rijksmuseum building glittered off to the right, on Stadhouderskade, and the facade of the Concertgebouw gleamed in the distance. New buildings mingled with fields, factories and sheds. Later, around 1900, after leaving this house and moving to the nearby Albert Cuypstraat, Mondrian would draw and paint the candle factory several times.

Jacob Olie / Boerenwetering near the Ruysdaelkade / 1894

View from the Ruysdaelkade with the furniture factory and the wax candle factory / ca. 1905

Practice makes perfect

The summer he lived on Ruysdaelkade, Mondrian went to the Rijksmuseum to copy Blommers’s Girl Knitting and Van der Velden’s Dubbel-blank. It’s not known whether he used the copies as inspiration or practice for paintings made around the same time, like Young Woman Peeling Potatoes and Woman Spinning. The copies could simply have been paid commissions. In any case, that July Mondrian completed his course at the Rijksacademie, with a focus on figure drawing skills.

Bernardus Johannes Blommers / Girl Knitting / 1885-1886

Piet Mondrian / Woman spinning / 1897-1899

Piet Mondrian / Young woman peeling potaties, etching / c. 1897

Hard times

Around this period Mondrian encountered difficulties. He was no longer receiving any financial aid. In 1942, he recalled, “At twenty-two began a very difficult time for me. To make a living I did many kinds of work - bacteriological drawings for textbooks and schoolrooms, portraits, copies of pictures in museums. And I taught as well. ”

Portrait of Piet Mondriaan / ca. 1892

Moving house

Mondrian lived in this house for just a few months and moved to Oosterparkstraat in August 1895.

Eerste Oosterparkstraat / 1920

Walk to Mondrian’s house on Ruysdaelkade

Mondrian’s house on Ruysdaelkade is part of our "Mondrian Highlights" route

Mondrian Highlights

Get to know the Amsterdam art world Piet Mondrian knew. Walk past the studios where he lived and worked, the artists’ societies he belonged to, the academy he studied at, and the places where he painted.