Art © Dedalus Foundation, Inc. /Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

Currently not on view

Untitled,

1957

Robert Motherwell, 1915–1991; born Aberdeen, WA; died Provincetown, MA; active New York, NY, Greenwich, CT, and Provincetown
x1965-75
Robert Motherwell used art to fathom the madness of his sociopolitical environment while also expressing his anxieties as a fledgling artist in New York City. Motherwell was one of the leading thinkers of his time alongside fellow New York School artists Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Willem de Kooning. He established himself as an original voice in postwar American art by creating collages that related tearing with killing and paint-soaked paper with bandages. Untitled shows Motherwell beginning to incorporate material from his studio into his collages, as was common in his work in the 1960s. He saw collage as a modern form of still life. Each element served witness to moments passed and to the places they were experienced; the collage is a buildup of experience, a memorial to a state of events.

Information

Title
Untitled
Dates

1957

Maker

Robert Motherwell

Medium
Paper collage and oil
Dimensions
40.2 x 30.2 cm (15 13/16 x 11 7/8 in.)
Credit Line
Anonymous gift
Object Number
x1965-75
Signatures
Signed and dated by scratching, upper right: R. Motherwell 57
Culture
American
Type
collages, drawings
Materials
oil paint, academy board, paper (fiber product)
Techniques
preparing
Subject
envelopes, letters (correspondence), stamps (exchange media)

Sidney Janis Gall.;

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