Mondrian Boogie Woogie

On October 3, 1940, the Dutch artist Piet Mondrian sailed into New York Harbor aboard the RMS Samaria. It had been a harrowing passage across the Atlantic as the 66-year-old painter escaped the chaos of World War II. That same night, Mondrian’s friend, the artist Harry Holtzman, played him several boogie woogie records—a percussive strain of blues piano that had recently taken New York by storm. First played by Black musicians in the American South in the 1800s, boogie woogie traveled with the Great Migration as millions of African Americans fled racial violence for opportunities in the north…