Art

Robert Motherwell The Studio 1987 Acrylic and charcoal on canvas 152.4 x 182.9 cms (60 x 72 ins) RM13966 P1140 When Motherwell made The Studio, in 1987, he was nearing the end of an...

Robert Motherwell (1915-1991) Open No. 126: In Beige with Blue 1970 Acrylic on canvas 61 x 76.2 cms (24 x 30 ins) RM13967 P533 The dedication on the verso of this painting is to the artist and editor Alexander Liberman (1912-1999) and his wife Tatiana (1906-1991). Signed, titled, dated twice 1970 and inscribed Merry Xmas to Tatiana & Alex Liberman from their friend Bob Motherwell on the stretcher. Provenance: Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Liberman, New York (gift of the artist). High Museum of Art, Atlanta (gift of the above in 1991). Sotheby's New York, 14 November 2012, lot 138. Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London (acquired at the above sale). Exhibited: Galerie Templon, Paris, Robert Motherwell Open...

Robert Motherwell Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 163 1979-82 Acrylic and Conte crayon on board 59.1 x 74.3 cms (23 1/4 x 29 1/4 ins) RM14159 P1061 Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 163 is a fine example of Robert Motherwell’s most acclaimed body of work, the Elegies to the Spanish Republic. As important as Barnett Newman’s zips and Jackson Pollock’s drips for their revolutionary contribution to art history, the Elegies are Motherwell’s most extensive series; he executed over 140 paintings using this motif, beginning in 1948 until his death in 1991. Nearly every major museum collection, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of Art, New York, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, have in their permanent collection an Elegy to the Spanish Republic. Intended to be read as a lamentation or funeral song after the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), Motherwell’s Elegies to the Spanish Republic are a lyrical and poetic memorial to the immense human loss and suffering endured during these harrowing years. Motherwell was a young student of twenty-one when the horrors of the Spanish Civil War commenced in 1936, and he would later reflect that it was the most “moving political event” of his youth. In 1939, the Spanish Civil War concluded with the fall of Spain’s democratically elected socialist government, which was deposed by a fascist coalition led by dictator Francisco Franco, whose dictatorship would persist until 1975. In 1948 nearly a decade after the end of the Spanish Civil War, Motherwell created his first Elegy with a small drawing to accompany a poem by Harold Rosenberg. Over the next four decades, Motherwell would pursue this same structural and thematic motif relentlessly; taken as a whole, the Elegies confirm the resounding impact that this war had on the young artist, and indeed stand as a powerful monument to the overwhelming loss during and in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. Motherwell stated: “I meant the word 'elegy' in the title. I was twenty-one in 1936, when the Spanish Civil War began…The Spanish Civil War was even more to my generation than Vietnam was to be thirty years later to its generation, and should not be forgotten, even though la guerre est finie.” (David Craven in Joan M...

Robert Motherwell Two Figures No.7 1958 Oil on paperboard mounted on board 18.9 x 23.9 cms (7 7/16 x 9 7/16 ins) RM14236 W36 Motherwell painted this work in Saint-Jean-de-Luz during...

Robert Motherwell Royal Dirge 1972 Acrylic on canvas 182.2 x 137.2 cms (71 3/4 x 54 ins) RM14402 P705 Signed and dated 72 upper left (recto) Signed, titled and dated 27 October 1972 (verso) Artist's studio number P72-5207 Provenance: Lawrence Rubin Gallery, New York. Solomon Byron Smith, Lake Forest (acquired in 1973). Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (bequest from the above in 1980). Christie's, New York, 9 November 2011. Galerie Sho Contemporary Art, Tokyo. Private collection, acquired from the above. Sotheby's New York, 14 November 2013. Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London, 2013 . Exhibited: Galerie Templon, Paris, Robert Motherwell Open...

Robert Motherwell Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 60 1960 Oil on paperboard 17.8 x 23.8 cms (7 x 9 3/8 ins) RM14624 W111 Provenance: Harriet Mnuchin Weiner, 1961. Christie's, New ...

Robert Motherwell Homage to Catalonia 1985 Acrylic on canvas 61 x 91.4 cms (24 x 36 ins) RM14749 P1116 This painting was begun in 1985 as a work from the Hollow Men series. By 1986 ...

Signed by the photographer

Signed by the photographer Edition 9/10

Robert Motherwell The Basque Suite: Untitled (ref. 86), 1971 screenprint on J.B. Green paper, ed. of 150 41 x 28 1/4 in. (104.1 x 71.8 cm)

Robert Motherwell London Series II: Untitled (Orange/Pink), 1971 screenprint on white J.B. Green mould-made Double Elephant paper, ed. of 150 28 1/2 x 41...

Robert Motherwell London Series II: Untitled (Blue/Cream), 1971 screenprint on white J.B. Green mould-made Double Elephant paper, ed. of 150 28 1/2 x 41 ...

A very good impression of this color monotype on cream wove paper. Signed, dated and dedicated in pencil by Motherwell. Dedicated to the art dealer and gallerist, Brooke Alexander.

Although credited by their married names at the time of publication, both subjects would re-marry and became better known as Babe Paley, the stylish socialite and “swan” of Truman Ca...

Open-bite etching printed in dark, brownish black on fibrous Japan paper. Signed "R. Motherwell," or "Motherwell" in pencil, lower right. Numbered in pencil, lower right. Paper size:...

Lithograph and chine appliqué to Arches paper. Siri Engberg and Joan Banach 'Robert Motherwell: The Complete Prints 1940-1991. Catalogue Raisonne', Walker Art Center and Hudson Hills...

Robert Motherwell’s iconic ‘Basque Suite’ demonstrates the artist’s innovative and painterly approach to printmaking. Designated as image number 5 in the suite, the artwork shown her...

From a portfolio of six individual lithographs, each created as Robert Motherwell’s visualization of six poems by Marcelin Pleynet, Beau Geste I was printed in 1989 by Teluride Press...

Screenprint Edition of 150

Robert Motherwell Open #125: Jeannie 1969 Acrylic and charcoal on canvasboard 76.2 x 50.8 cms (30 x 20 ins) RM9796 P532 The title of this painting refers to Motherwell's elder daugh...

Robert Motherwell Automatism No. 11 1965 Ink and oil on paper 67.3 x 61.6 cms (26 1/2 x 24 1/4 ins) Part of the Beside the Sea series, a series of oil paintings influenced by Mother...

Robert Motherwell Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 110C 1968 Acrylic and graphite on paper 15.2 x 20.3 cms (6 x 8 ins) Robert Motherwell's Elegies series represent one of the iconic motifs of Abstract Expressionism.  Based on a 1948 ink illustration the artist executed accompanying a Harold Rosenberg poem, “A Bird for every bird,” the drawing shows the hypnotically repetitive patterning of ovoids and vertical beams.  The stark contrast of the black ink on white paper references the symbolic use of the color black by artists such as Goya, Manet and Matisse to convey death, loss, and tragedy.  Motherwell was quite affected by the turbulence of the Spanish Civil War and alludes to the Spanish republic in his Elegies. Motherwell’s plumbing the depths of poetry, history, and primordial art in the Elegies is considered a hallmark of nascent Abstract Expressionist painting in its desire to "excavate" essential imagery of mankind. Motherwell, who originally trained as a philosophy scholar and later became of the great editors of 20th century art documents, grasped very early on the crucial importance that in order to contribute meaningfully to the canon of modern art, one must create a principle of aesthetics. Through the surrealist concept of automatism, the artist finally found the creative principle that eventually governed his extraordinary artistic output and produced the Elegies, one of the most salient, immediate painterly images of 20th century abstract painting. In fact, he has alluded to the fact that each one of his Elegies begins as an automatic drawing, and certain shapes are then blocked to create the signature armature of the vertical bars and ovals. The Elegies seem to possess the power of an archetypal image, an image the mind already grasps on a subconscious level. Motherwell's play of dualities of black and white as well as other dichotomies—the geometric versus the organic, chaos versus order, death versus life—was a condition of living through a tumultuous period in American history. During an interview, he vividly recalled the 1940s as the time when society was ordered by a set of contradictions.  In Motherwell's Elegies, he not only discovered an incredibly elastic pictorial language that would communicate on multiple levels but also acknowledged these contradictions in a manner that would resonate in abstract form.  The present work served as a model for a painting, Spanish Elegy...

Robert Motherwell Brasileira 1975 Acrylic, graphite and printed paper collage on canvas laid on board 121 x 91 cms (47 5/8 x 35 7/8 ins) Provenance: Ace Gallery, Los Angeles Doug...

America-La France Variations IV 1984. Lithograph in colors with collage on Tyler Graphics Ltd. handmade paper. Signed in pencil Numbered 17/68 (there were also XVIII artist’s proofs ...

America-La France Variations I 1983-4. Lithograph in colors with collage on Tyler Graphics Ltd. handmade paper. Signed in pencil Numbered 46/70 (there were also XVIII artist’s proofs...

Created by the artist in 1975, Robert Motherwell’s, Untitled is an exceptional etching and aquatint, hand-signed in pencil, and numbered, measuring 30 x 22 in. (76.2 x 60 cm), unfram...

Photographer’s stamp on the verso From the collection of and signed by Horst

From the collection of and signed by Horst

Signed by the photographer

Platinum Palladium Print

Signed by the photographer

Signed by the photographer

Signed by the photographer

Signed by the photographer

Signed by the photographer

Signed by the photographer

Signed by the photographer

Signed by the photographer

Signed by the photographer

Signed by the photographer

Vintage Print

Signed by the photographer

Signed by the photographer

Signed by the photographer

Signed by the photographer

Signed by the photographer

Signed by the photographer

Signed by the photographer

Photographer’s stamp on the verso

Signed by the photographer

Photographer’s stamp on the verso

Photographer’s stamp on the verso

Signed by the photographer

Photographer’s stamp on the verso

Photographer’s stamp on the verso

Photographer’s stamp on the verso

Photographer’s stamp on the verso

Photographer’s stamp on the verso