How did New York City influence Piet Mondrian’s late paintings?

After moving to New York City in 1940, Piet Mondrian’s artistic style underwent a significant transformation, entering its final phase. Inspired by the city's "pulsating life" and the rhythms of American music, his work shifted away from the austere, rigid black-line grids that had characterized his earlier neoplasticism.12

Instead of continuous black lines, Mondrian began using coloured bands, which he eventually replaced with series of small, vibrant rectangles. These elements coalesced into a rhythmic, joyous flow of vertical and horizontal lines, reflecting the energy of his new environment. This evolution is most famously captured in his late masterpieces, such as Broadway Boogie Woogie and New York City I, which express a newfound vivacity through the autonomous movement of colour blocks. In New York, Mondrian effectively gave complex colour planes precedence over lines, marking a final, dynamic departure in his formal experimentation.12