Robert Motherwell Art
American, 1915-1991
The name of painter, printmaker and writer Robert Motherwell (1915–91) is often taken as synonymous with the New York School, whose name he coined. Motherwell was the youngest of this group of Abstract Expressionists working in art, dance, poetry and music in 1950s and '60s New York City, which included Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Philip Guston, Helen Frankenthaler and Mark Rothko.
Born in Aberdeen, Washington, in 1915, Motherwell had perhaps the broadest and best education of any of the New York School coterie, with an extensive background in philosophy, literature and art history. He earned a BA in philosophy in 1937 from Stanford University and was working toward a PhD in the subject at Harvard when he interrupted his studies for a yearlong trip to Europe, where he fell in love with European modernism.
After returning, in 1940 he enrolled Columbia to study art history. It was there that he met a group of exiled Parisian Surrealists, and encounter that proved influential on his style. Motherwell began to integrate the idea of “automatism” — unmediated gestures that reflect deeper psychological impulses — into his work, pioneering a new form of Abstract Expressionism that came to characterize the New York School.
Works like the 1967 Beside the Sea no. 45, an acrylic on canvas, and the 1966 lithograph New York International epitomize Motherwell’s use of simple shapes in boldly contrasting colors, executed in quick, gestural strokes that occasionally evoke figures, suggesting a latent narrative despite their obvious abstraction.
Throughout his career, Motherwell taught painting at Hunter College, in New York, and at Black Mountain College, in North Carolina, where his work influenced the likes of Cy Twombly, Robert Rauschenberg and Kenneth Noland. His influence as one of the founding fathers of American Abstract Expressionism remains profound.
Color: Beige
Artist: Robert Motherwell
American – La France Variations VII, Ed./68
By Robert Motherwell
Located in Washington Depot,, CT
Robert Motherwell was an American artist and seminal Abstract Expressionist painter. Today, his works are held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Galler...
Category
1980s Abstract Robert Motherwell Art
Materials
Lithograph
America-La France Variations VI
By Robert Motherwell
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Robert Motherwell (1915-1991), alongside Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Willem de Kooning, made up the quartet of American abstract painters that radically defined abstraction and...
Category
1980s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art
Materials
Lithograph
"American - La France Variation VIII"
By Robert Motherwell
Located in Hinsdale, IL
Robert Motherwell
American - La France Variation VIII
Lithograph in colors from five aluminum plates with collage in Arches, 1984
Arches collaged on Oatmeal Australian Bemboka hand...
Category
1980s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art
Materials
Lithograph
Three Poems: Burnt Water
By Robert Motherwell
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Robert Motherwell, American (1915 - 1991)
Title: No. 10 from Three Poems, collaboration with Octavio Paz
Year: 1987
Medium: Lithograph on Japon with Chine Colle
Edition: 750
...
Category
1980s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art
Materials
Rice Paper, Lithograph
Limited Edition Lithograph as Exhibition Catalogue Cover, Signed and Dedicated
By Robert Motherwell
Located in New York, NY
Robert Motherwell
Limited Edition Lithograph as Exhibition Catalogue Cover, Signed and Dedicated to Jacqueline Brody (Editor of the Print Collectors' Newsletter), 1974
Lithograph on Limited Edition Catalogue, Ink Signed and Dedicated
10 x 24 inches
Boldly signed n 1974 and dedicated in black felt tip pen to Jacqueline Brody, editor of the Print Collectors Newsletter from 1972 - 1996.
This poignant 1974 Robert Motherwell lithograph...
Category
1970s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art
Materials
Ink, Lithograph, Offset
Three Poems: Nocturne III
By Robert Motherwell
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Robert Motherwell, American (1915 - 1991)
Title: No. 3 from Three Poems, collaboration with Octavio Paz
Year: 1987
Medium: Lithograph on Japon with Chine Colle
Edition: 750
I...
Category
1980s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art
Materials
Rice Paper, Lithograph
America - La France Variations I
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
118.1 x 81.6 cms (46.5 x 32.1 ins)
Edition of 70
Published by Tyler Graphics, New York
Signed and numbered in pencil
Category
1980s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art
Materials
Color, Lithograph
Red Sea I
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
105.4 x 74 cms (41 1/2 x 29 1/8 ins)
Edition of 100
Paper: Arches Cover
Signature: Signed "Motherwell" in pencil lower right
Inscriptions: Numbered in pencil lower right; artist's c...
Category
1970s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art
Materials
Color, Etching, Aquatint
Glass Garden
By Robert Motherwell
Located in Laguna Beach, CA
Created in 1984 on handmade paper, “Glass Garden” was signed in pencil, numbered 50/59, and published by Motherwell with his blind stamp in New York City.
Robert Motherwell, the youn...
Category
20th Century Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art
Materials
Etching, Aquatint
Black Sounds
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Robert Motherwell
Black Sounds
1984
Lithograph, relief print, and collage
99.1 x 63.5 cms (39 x 25 ins)
RM14197
Category
1980s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art
Materials
Lithograph
Perpetual Summer
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
60 x 42.9 cms ( 23.62 x 16.89 ins)
Edition of 26
Signature:Signed "Motherwell" in pencil lower right
Inscriptions:Numbered in pencil lower right; artist's chop mark lower right
Publ...
Category
1980s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art
Materials
Color, Etching, Aquatint
America La-France Variations IX
By Robert Motherwell
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Robert Motherwell (1915-1991), alongside Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Willem de Kooning, made up the quartet of American abstract painters that radically defined Modern painting...
Category
1980s Abstract Robert Motherwell Art
Materials
Lithograph
In White with Green Stripe
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Rober Motherwell
In White with Green Stripe
1987
Lithograph, relief print, embossing and collage
86.4 x 61 cms (34 x 24 ins)
Category
1980s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art
Materials
Lithograph
Paris Suite 2 (Summer)
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Robert Motherwell
Paris Suite II (Summer)
1980
Lithograph on J.B. Green handmade paper, Edition of 60
49.2 x 41 cms (19 1/2 x 16 ins)
RM17034
CR 265
Sign...
Category
1980s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art
Materials
Lithograph
Lyric Suite: Liberté Toute Entière No. 3
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Black ink with orange bleed on rice paper
22.9 x 27.9 cms (9 x 11 ins)
Category
20th Century Robert Motherwell Art
Materials
Ink
Lyric Suite
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Ink on rice paper
27.9 x 22.9 cms (11 x 9 ins)
Category
20th Century Robert Motherwell Art
Materials
Ink
Lyric Suite
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Ink on rice paper
27.9 x 22.9 cms (11 x 9 ins)
Category
20th Century Robert Motherwell Art
Materials
Ink
Open Study (White Line on Beige No. 1)
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Acrylic on paper
77.5 x 55.9 cms (30 1/2 x 22 ins)
Category
20th Century Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art
Materials
Acrylic
Open Study (White Line on Beige No. 2)
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Acrylic and graphite on paper
77.5 x 55.9 cms (30 1/2 x 22 ins)
Category
1960s Robert Motherwell Art
Materials
Acrylic
Paroles peintes III: Untitled
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Open-bite etching printed in dark, brownish black on fibrous Japan paper
38 x 28 cms (14 7/8 x 11 1/8 ins)
Edition of 200 in three numbered segments
Category
1960s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art
Materials
Etching
At the Edge
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Aquatint, lift-ground etching and aquatint on Auvergne
a la Main Richard de Bas handmade paper
57.8 x 63.8 cms (22.75 x 25.1 ins)
Edition of 34
Signed "Motherwell" in pencil ...
Category
1980s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art
Materials
Mixed Media, Color, Etching, Aquatint
On the Wing
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
46.75 x 30.5 ins (118.7 x 77.5 cms)
Edition of 70
Signed in pencil lower right.
Numbered in pencil lower right; workshop chop mark lower right; workshop number "RM83-718" in pe...
Category
1980s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art
Materials
Mixed Media, Color, Lithograph
Untitled
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
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 ...
Category
1990s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art
Materials
Acrylic, Panel, Color Pencil
Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 163
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
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...
Category
1980s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art
Materials
Conté, Acrylic, Board
Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 60
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
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 ...
Category
1960s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art
Materials
Oil
Untitled
By Robert Motherwell
Located in New York, NY
A very good impression of this color screenprint on Arches Imperial paper. It is signed and numbered 106/250 in pencil by Motherwell. Printed by Maurel Studio, New York. Published by...
Category
1970s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art
Materials
Color, Screen
Paroles peintes III: Untitled
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
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:...
Category
Mid-20th Century Robert Motherwell Art
Materials
Etching
Beau Geste I
By Robert Motherwell
Located in New York, NY
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...
Category
20th Century Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art
Materials
Lithograph
Automatism No. 11
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
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...
Category
1960s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art
Materials
Ink, Oil
Study for Open Series
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Acrylic and graphite on paper.
15.2 x 21 cms (6 x 8 1/4 ins)
Category
20th Century Robert Motherwell Art
Materials
Acrylic, Graphite
Robert Motherwell art for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic Robert Motherwell art available for sale on 1stDibs. If you’re browsing the collection of art to introduce a pop of color in a neutral corner of your living room or bedroom, you can find work that includes elements of orange, red, blue and other colors. You can also browse by medium to find art by Robert Motherwell in lithograph, etching, paint and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the abstract style. Not every interior allows for large Robert Motherwell art, so small editions measuring 1 inch across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Sam Francis, Paul Jenkins, and Helen Frankenthaler. Robert Motherwell art prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $150 and tops out at $3,600,000, while the average work can sell for $9,500.
Artists Similar to Robert Motherwell
Questions About Robert Motherwell Art
- 1stDibs ExpertApril 5, 2022Robert Motherwell was a part of the art movement called Abstract Expressionism. Artists who participated in the movement sought to express emotions through abstract forms. You'll find a range of Robert Motherwell art from some of the world’s top sellers on 1stDibs.
- How did Motherwell paint?1 Answer1stDibs ExpertMarch 22, 2022Robert Motherwell painted using techniques borrowed from action and color field painting. He sometimes dipped thinned paint right onto the canvas. In other works, he soaked paints into an unprimed work surface. Find a variety of Robert Motherwell art on 1stDibs.