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Robert MotherwellAfrica Suite #101970
1970
About the Item
Robert Motherwell (1915-1991), alongside Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Willem de Kooning, made up the quartet of abstract painters that radically defined Modern painting in America and established New York City as the new center of the art world.
Motherwell was the unofficial spokesman of the New York School, writing, editing a journal, and lecturing on behalf of the movement, his fellow artists, and the merits of abstraction.
Motherwell’s works are instantly recognizable by their repeated visual motifs. A devoted exploration within his practice was working with abstract fields of dark negative space. Often aggressive or elegant in their spontaneity, his compositions hold confident energy.
The Africa Suite portfolio is an important part of Motherwell's printmaking oeuvre because of its celebration of gestural black forms. In this body of work, Motherwell asks the spirit of abstract expressionism to confront minimalism.
"Africa Suite #10" is one of most striking examples from this admired series of prints. It features a bold and very ambiguous black shape against a warm neutral color field. The simplicity of this composition recalls a graphic Rorschach test. An organic form swells across the page and begs the viewer to interpret its presence. Is this shape representing something menacing or friendly? Or is it simply an abstraction?
Motherwell's contribution to the art historical canon is undisputed. This recognition is imbued as a result of his prolific achievements in printmaking. He is revered as one of the most experimental and courageous printmakers of the 20th century.
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“Africa Suite #10"
USA, 1970
Colour Screenprint on J.B. green paper
Initialed and dated in pencil, lower margin
Artist’s blind stamp lower right
From an edition of 150
40.75"H 28.25"W (work)
Very good condition.
Published by Marlborough Graphics, Inc., New York.
- Creator:Robert Motherwell (1915-1991, American)
- Creation Year:1970
- Dimensions:Height: 40.75 in (103.51 cm)Width: 28.25 in (71.76 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:Very good condition.
- Gallery Location:Toronto, CA
- Reference Number:
Robert Motherwell
The name of painter, printmaker and writer Robert Motherwell (1915–91) is often taken as synonymous with the New York School, whose name he coined. Motherwell was the youngest of this group of Abstract Expressionists working in art, dance, poetry and music in 1950s and '60s New York City, which included Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Philip Guston, Helen Frankenthaler and Mark Rothko.
Born in Aberdeen, Washington, in 1915, Motherwell had perhaps the broadest and best education of any of the New York School coterie, with an extensive background in philosophy, literature and art history. He earned a BA in philosophy in 1937 from Stanford University and was working toward a PhD in the subject at Harvard when he interrupted his studies for a yearlong trip to Europe, where he fell in love with European modernism.
After returning, in 1940 he enrolled Columbia to study art history. It was there that he met a group of exiled Parisian Surrealists, and encounter that proved influential on his style. Motherwell began to integrate the idea of “automatism” — unmediated gestures that reflect deeper psychological impulses — into his work, pioneering a new form of Abstract Expressionism that came to characterize the New York School.
Works like the 1967 Beside the Sea no. 45, an acrylic on canvas, and the 1966 lithograph New York International epitomize Motherwell’s use of simple shapes in boldly contrasting colors, executed in quick, gestural strokes that occasionally evoke figures, suggesting a latent narrative despite their obvious abstraction.
Throughout his career, Motherwell taught painting at Hunter College, in New York, and at Black Mountain College, in North Carolina, where his work influenced the likes of Cy Twombly, Robert Rauschenberg and Kenneth Noland. His influence as one of the founding fathers of American Abstract Expressionism remains profound.
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