Field Trip

Art Investigators: Exploring Modern Art

As “art investigators,” students will look for clues, discover artists’ choices, and use their imaginations to explore modern and contemporary art. This field trip will include simple art-making activities designed to help students think creatively and make personal connections to the works of art.

This abstract, geometric painting has been tipped on one corner to create a diamond form rather than a square. The surface of the canvas is crisscrossed by an irregular grid of black lines running vertically and horizontally like offset ladders. The black lines create squares and rectangles of different sizes, and the width of the lines vary slightly. One complete square sits at the center of the composition and is painted white. Other rectangles are incomplete, their corners sliced by the edge of the canvas, and each is a different shade of white with hints of pale blue and gray. The black grid creates triangular forms where it meets the angled edge of the canvas in some places, and some of these are filled with flat areas of color. A tomato-red triangle is placed to the left of the top center point, and a vibrant yellow triangle is to the left of the lower center point. A black triangle is next to it at the bottom center, and a cobalt-blue triangle is situated just below the right point. The painting is signed with the artist’s initials at the lower center: “PM.”
Piet Mondrian, Tableau No. IV; Lozenge Composition with Red, Gray, Blue, Yellow, and Black, c. 1924/1925, oil on canvas, Gift of Herbert and Nannette Rothschild, 1971.51.1

Grade Level

Subject

Duration

60–75 minutes

Language

Schedule a Field Trip

Looking and Learning Skills

During three or four field trip stops, students engage in activities—looking exercises, art-making activities, and small group work—that foster conversations and extend students’ understanding of the artists’ creative process. The following skills are promoted:

  • Observing, describing, and sharing ideas about the works of art.
  • Developing ideas about art by drawing on clues, prior knowledge, and imagination.
  • Making personal connections with the works of art.
  • Feeling a sense of belonging in the museum setting.

  • In-Person Field Trip Information

    Group Size: Up to 90 students
    Length: 60 minutes for ages 4 through grade 3; 75 minutes for grades 4 and 5
    Offered at: 12:30 p.m., 1:00 p.m., and 2:15 p.m.
    Meeting Location: East Building Atrium

  • Important Scheduling Information

    Field trips must be scheduled at least four weeks in advance. Groups must contain at least 15 students.

    Once your field trip has been scheduled, you will receive an email confirmation within ten business days.

Examples of Works Featured on this Field Trip

Black lines and one small, black triangular shape stand out against patches of color, in indigo and sky blue, pumpkin orange, butter yellow, emerald green, and ruby red, against a white background in this vertical, abstract painting. The paint seems thinly applied, resembling watercolor. Near the lower right corner, the black shape is roughly triangular and has five curving, parallel lines emanating from the bottom. Given the title of this painting, Improvisation 31, Sea Battle, the black lines could represent tall masts and outlines of sails amid areas of vibrant color that make up a boat and water around it.
Tall, sinuous, wine-red, plum-purple, and kelly-green curving forms fill this vertical abstract painting. The forms grow up from the bottom edge and converge into an S-shaped curl near the top of the canvas. A bright white line slices down the background beyond the petal at the top, and tapers to a point about three-quarters of the way down the composition. Two elongated, burgundy-red lobes emerge from black shadow at the lower left. One sliver of green grows up the center, and another flares out to our right. The top edge of the painting is lined with celery green at the middle deepening to grass green at the upper corners.
Georgia O'Keeffe, Jack-in-Pulpit Abstraction - No. 5, 1930, oil on canvas, Alfred Stieglitz Collection, Bequest of Georgia O'Keeffe, © Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1987.58.4

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