Robert Motherwell

Study for Open Series

1968

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 (1915-1991) Untitled 1990 Acrylic and coloured pencil on panel 40.6 x 50.8 cms (16 x 20 ins) RM13143 P1195 The composition of this painting is based on the left ...

Premonition Open, with Flesh over Grey, 1974, belongs to an extended series of works that came to be called the Opens and which came about by a happy accident. Leaning a finished can...

William Tillyer’s Recent Paintings by John Yau Time has proven William Tillyer to be the most adventuresome painter of his generation. This is no small achievement. In a country kno...

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...

Acrylic, pasted papers, and graphite on paper 56 x 26 cms (22 x 10 1/4 ins)

This series of works by the Danish artist Peter Kramer (Roskilde, 1959) with numerous exhibitions between Spain and Denmark are entitled "365 urns", in which the artist works with ti...

This series of works by the Danish artist Peter Kramer (Roskilde, 1959) with numerous exhibitions between Spain and Denmark are entitled "365 urns", in which the artist works with ti...

This series of works by the Danish artist Peter Kramer (Roskilde, 1959) with numerous exhibitions between Spain and Denmark are entitled "365 urns", in which the artist works with ti...

This series of works by the Danish artist Peter Kramer (Roskilde, 1959) with numerous exhibitions between Spain and Denmark are entitled "365 urns", in which the artist works with ti...

This series of works by the Danish artist Peter Kramer (Roskilde, 1959) with numerous exhibitions between Spain and Denmark are entitled "365 urns", in which the artist works with ti...

This series of works by the Danish artist Peter Kramer (Roskilde, 1959) with numerous exhibitions between Spain and Denmark are entitled "365 urns", in which the artist works with ti...