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 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) Great Wall of China No. 4 1971 Acrylic and charcoal on canvas 152.4 x 101.6 cms (60 x 40 ins) RM10101 P617 This work is part of the artist's Great Wall of China series, of which there are only five paintings, all of which are in private hands. Painted on a traditionally primed canvas, it is an exploration of the tension between foreground and background. The U-shaped forms in this series of paintings are closely related to the paintings in Motherwell's Open series of which there are a greater number of paintings and drawings. Great Wall of China series refer to a Franz Kafka short story about the Chinese landmark, which certainly served as a dividing line in its time, and perhaps also to contemporaneous events involving China, such as Henry Kissinger...

Robert Motherwell Black Open 1973 Acrylic on canvas 182.9 x 91.4 cms (72 x 36 ins) RM9611 P735 Motherwell's fascination with black started when he was wo...

‘No Chance’ is a medium size abstract expressionist Basquiat-inspired acrylic and newsprint on canvas painting created by Vietnamese artist Nguyen Cong Cu in 2012.

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...

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 gives a special character to the work - you can play with it by asking questions, pointing to any part of the work, and you will get a meaningful phrase or a word. The work has blue and white colors. Great for the modern interior. The work is unstretched and will be shipped in a roll. -- "Chaos and Control Theory" Series is about depth and space. It’s about information overload, and what information looks like when you take out a meaning. I create lots of layers, using found materials and printed materials. I do an abstract expressionism painting on a surface first before I apply the printed and found materials. And then I begin to organize the surface, ultimately thinking about balance and flow and how the piece is going to contribute to the space it is going to be hanging in. -- Zach Touchon is an American contemporary abstract expressionist artist and muralist based in Los Angeles, CA. Besides that, Touchon is also an actor, a singer, a screenwriter, and a writer. Zach Touchon is an artist in the second generation. By rethinking abstract expressionism ideas, using different media he creates large abstract artwork along with small collages, huge...

"Velo - Primavera" Mixed media painting on canvas exploring reality behind nature’s appearance. Through marks, layers of paint, inserts of collage, I try to connect what we see with ...