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Robert Motherwell (1915-1991)
The youngest member of the circle of first generation Abstract Expressionist
painters, Robert Motherwell was unique in this group for his extensive writings
on art as well as his prolific printmaking. Born in Aberdeen,
Washington, in 1915, Motherwell grew up
intending to become a philosopher and received a bachelor's degree in
philosophy at Stanford
University before heading
east for graduate study at Harvard. As a child Motherwell’s artistic talent was
encouraged with a scholarship for study at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, but he did
not begin painting seriously until embarking on a year of European travel in
1938.
In 1941, after traveling to Mexico
with Chilean surrealist Matta Echaurren, Motherwell decided to paint full time
and moved to Greenwich Village. During this
decade, he was most influenced by European surrealists, including Max Ernst,
Yves Tanguy and André Masson. Interested in the unconscious mind, Motherwell
explored theories of automatism by creating free-association collages that he
sometimes used as underpinnings for future painting compositions. Automatism
also offered Motherwell “an active principle for painting, specifically
designed to explore unknown possibilities.”(1) Experimenting with this
technique, Motherwell developed a loose yet vigorous brushwork that resonated
with emotion.
Motherwell’s art displayed his passion for history, literature, and the human
condition. From the beginning he strove to evoke a moral and political
experience through his art. As an example, the artist drew on the writing of
James Joyce for titles to his paintings, drawings, and prints throughout his
career. A poem by Spanish poet Frederico García Lorca gave him the theme of the
Elegy to the Spanish
Republic, which
Motherwell explored in over 200 works.
Motherwell met William Baziotes in 1942 and quickly gained entry to the group
of New York
artists who would become known as Abstract Expressionists. In 1943, art
collector and patron Peggy Guggenheim invited Motherwell, along with Jackson
Pollock and Baziotes, to contribute work to an all-collage group show. The
following year, Motherwell had his first one-man show at Guggenheim’s Art of
This Century Gallery.
In the late 1960s, Motherwell began his Open series, a striking departure from
his gestural paintings. Typically fields of color marked with faint charcoal
lines suggesting a door or a window, the Open paintings were originally
inspired by the sight of a small canvas leaning against a larger one. For the
rest of his career, Motherwell painted in both expressive and austere modes, in
addition to creating collages and collaborating with printmakers to make
limited edition prints.
Motherwell died suddenly at his home in Provincetown
in the summer of 1991 and worked productively up to the end. By this time, his
career had been widely celebrated and examined with exhibitions not only at
Museum of Modern Art in New York, but also at the National Gallery of Art in
Washington, D. C., the Royal Academy in London, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery
in Buffalo and the Tamayo Museum in Mexico City (this opened posthumously).
1) David Rosand, ed. Robert Motherwell on Paper. (New York: Abrams, 1977), p.14.
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