Robert Motherwell

Irish Book

1988

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 Shem the Penman #18 1983 Acrylic and charcoal on canvas 25.4 x 35.5 cms (10 x 13 3/4 ins) RM10044 P1068 Signed upper left and on reverse. Provenance: Dedalus Foun...

Acrylic on paper 77.5 x 55.9 cms (30 1/2 x 22 ins)

Acrylic on paper 79.1 x 106.4 cms (31 1/8 x 41 15/16 ins)

Colourful, French mixed media abstract, acrylic, newsprint and ink from the 1980s. The canvas is signed and dated bottom right but we have not yet managed to decipher it. A colourful and engaging painting crossing over styles. The colourfield elements are reminiscent of the work of Mark Rothko, three defined bands of colour in orange/pink tones vertically dissecting the painting with one horizontal band across the top, and yet the elongated depiction of the female figures within the bands remind us of Gustav Klimt and his paintings of Adele. The background of the painting has been worked broadly with a palette knife whilst the detail has been added quickly and deftly with ink or finer brushstrokes. With the addition of newsprint (in French) the artist may...

Lesley Anne Spowart (American, born 1957) "Friendship Garden" 2021 Acrylic Paint, Paper, Mixed Media, Canvas The artist signed the back of the painting. Friendship Garden by Lesley ...

Born in Vietnam’s Hung Yen Province in 1969, artist Nguyen Cong Cu has received recognition for his striking gritty urban commentaries on navigating contemporary life in Vietnam. His...

This work is a part of the "Chaos and Control Theory" Series - the artist's signature series. It was created with the pages from an Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. This technique gi...