Charmion von Wiegand: Expanding Modernism

Maja Wismer

Softcover | 22.3 x 1.2 x 29.2 cm | 160 pp

Prestel | 2021 | 9783791359748

Charmion von Wiegand (1896-1983) was an American journalist, art critic, and painter. Although largely unknown today, she won international acclaim beginning in the
1950s for paintings and collages in which she combined Far Eastern iconography with geometric abstraction. As Haema Sivanesan describes in this publication, Charmion von Wiegand developed a visual language for a "transcultural, modern Buddhism."

Yet, it was as an art critic and member of New York's literary circles in the 1920s that she initially made a name for herself. It was in this capacity that she first met Piet
Mondrian. Von Wiegand's engagement with Mondrian's transcendental, geometrically abstract art prepared the ground for her own work. These colourful compositions inspired by her personal spiritual practices continue to fascinate new generations.

This comprehensive monograph, richly illustrated, with never-before-seen primary documents and new research, lays the foundation for re-examining the legacy of one of the 20th-century's most open and inquisitive minds.