The Dresden art collector Ida Bienert (1870-1965) was one of the earliest patrons of the avant-garde. In 1888, she married the wealthy flour and bread manufacturer Erwin Bienert. As early as 1910, Ida Bienert began devoting herself to modern art, focusing on abstract-constructive works from artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, El Lissitzky and Piet Mondrian. In the family mansion, she led a salon that would become an important intellectual and cultural center in Dresden. Guests included Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, László Moholy-Nagy, Lyonel Feininger, Walter Gropius and El Lissitzky, as well as other creative artists, writers and scientists.

A supporter of constructivism, Ida Bienert was never quite satisfied with the historical rooms of the villa, which was built in 1888. She thus saw to it that the private rooms on the upper floor had functional furnishings. She fitted out the foyer in a modern style and selected the wall colors based on the ideas of the Bauhaus.

Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), a pioneer of the Dutch De Stijl movement, was one of the most important representatives of abstract art in Europe. In his painting, he developed neoplasticism (new design). He reduced his visual vocabulary to strict geometrical compositions, using the primary colors red, blue and yellow as well as white and grey tones, structured within a black line grid. To Mondrian, balanced relations between shape, color and line expressed symmetry and beauty in the then emerging modern world.

In 1925, the Dresden gallery Kühl & Kühn showed Mondrian’s first solo exhibition in Germany. After acquiring two paintings by the artist, Ida Bienert commissioned Mondrian with designing a room concept for her villa. Although she approved of his concept, she did not implement it. The 1926 design was one of Mondrian’s few attempts to concretely apply his philosophical and aesthetic considerations for a “new design” to architecture.

Link to the sketches, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden: https://skd-online-collection.skd.museum/Details/Index/539719