Artwork displayed upside down for 75 years
An art historian has claimed that an artwork by the abstract Dutch painter Piet Mondrian has been displayed upside down for 75 years.
The artwork, titled New York City I, was originally put on display at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 1945, four years after it was completed.
Since then, it has been on display in various galleries around the world, and is currently hanging in the art collection of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia in Düsseldorf, where it has been since 1980.
Curator Susanne Meyer-Büser noticed the longstanding error when researching the museum's new show on the artist earlier this year, but warned it could disintegrate if it was hung the right side up now.
"The thickening of the grid should be at the top, like a dark sky," Meyer-Büser told The Guardian, about the unfinished and unsigned red, blue and yellow striped lattice artwork.
"Once I pointed it out to the other curators, we realised it was very obvious. It is very likely the picture is the wrong way around," she added when contacted by the BBC.
The evidence seems to bear this theory out, as the similarly-named New York City by the same artist, which is on display at Paris's Centre Pompidou, displays a thickening of lines at the top, rather than the bottom.
In order to prevent any damage to the work, it will continue to be displayed upside down.
Image credits: Getty Images