Oct. 6 (UPI) -- A painting by Piet Mondrian, a Dutch painter and early pioneer of abstract art, is expected to garner more than $50 million in an auction next month.
Mondrian's signature black grid lines and bright-colored squares painting, Composition No. II, is one of the most well-known pieces of abstract art.
The artwork features rectangular color fields of blue, red, white and yellow broken by black lines
is being advertised by Sotheby's as "one of the most significant and valuable works by the artist ever offered on the market."
"There are few artists who have staked such an audacious claim in the history of Modern art as Piet Mondrian, whose grid-style of abstract painting is a truly singular achievement in painting history," Oliver Barker, Sotheby's Europe Chairman, said in a statement.
"The work hums with an electricity that mirrors the energy of painting in Europe at this time and remains as vital as it did when it was painted nearly 100 years ago."
Mondrian, from Amersfoort in the Netherlands, studied at the Academy of Fine Art in Amsterdam before he moved to Paris in 1912, where he was deeply influenced by the Cubist works of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque.
He briefly returned to the Netherlands from 1914 to 1918 where he founded the art journal De Stijl with Theo van Doesburg.
Mondrian returned to Paris in 1918 -- where he lived until 1938 as he developed his signature style and embraced abstraction in art. He ultimately left Europe for the United States upon the rise of fascism and died of pneumonia in New York in 1944.
Composition No. II was created in 1930 and last auctioned in 1983. Next month's auction will take place at Sotheby's on Nov. 14.
