Marlow Moss (1889–1958) was a pioneering British Constructivist artist whose geometric abstract work was central to the development of European Modernism. Often overlooked in favour of her contemporary and friend Piet Mondrian, Moss is now being rediscovered for her mathematical precision and radical lifestyle.
In 1927 Moss moved to Paris where she studied under Fernand Léger and became a founding member of the Abstraction-Création group.
In 1930, she introduced the "double line" motif - two thin parallel lines used to create dynamic movement - to solve what she saw as the static nature of Mondrian’s single-line grids. Despite popular belief that she followed Mondrian, he adopted the double line after seeing Moss's work, a contribution often relegated to art history footnotes.
Unlike Mondrian’s intuitive process, Moss’s compositions were strictly grounded in mathematical rules and science.
Marlow Moss by Lucy Howarth is number 3 in the Modern Women Artists series of mini-monographs about brilliant women artists. Find out more and start collecting the series here.
