Robert Motherwell

Royal Dirge

1972

John Hoyland Ormolu 1972 Acrylic on canvas 183.5 x 137.5 cms (72 1/4 x 54 1/8 ins) JH001 Provenance: Andre Emmerich, New York Christie's London, 1989 Acquired from the above

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 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...

"Untitled" 2019, 25" x 31" horizontal drawing on paper by Argentine-born artist Karina Gentinetta (featured in Architectural Digest, Elle Decor, the...

"A Long Way Home" is a captivating contemporary abstract painting measuring 60 inches by 60 inches. Created in 2020 on a Baltic birch panel, the piece exemplifies a dynamic explosion...

"Cowboy Sunset" is a captivating abstract painting that exudes warmth and intensity. The composition is a dynamic interplay of bold, gestural brushstrokes in varying shades of red, a...

The Future Is Now explores geometry and colour, highlighting a split composition that plays with balance, tension, and contrast. On the left side, a deep black backdrop houses a stri...