Robert Motherwell: A look at a spirit that created itself

Robert Motherwell in the art world rankings: forgotten? Never exist?

Neither forgetting nor deprived of the entry that Robert Motherwell is a very well -known and highly honored artist in the USA. We (arrogant) Europeans lie that he only “only” ranked 223 in the world's best list of art Because we always want to make the artist try to be invited to Europe, while Robert Motherwell did not even know how to reproduce his time to create only part of his appointments in his homeland ...

Europe has not expressly invited Motherwell enough, only during the 1970s (towards the end of his career) did he have significant retrospective exhibitions in a number of European cities: Düsseldorf, Vienna, Paris, Edinburgh, London and Stockholm. However, such statements on the worldwide distribution of rather nationally popular artists have to be considered with artists whose work ended some time before the turn of the millennium (Motherwell died in 1991), which many people of today no longer have up to date: today:

The explosion of the worldwide art exchange (with the aim of the assembly as many exhibitions as possible worldwide) was only possible with networking by the Internet, around a decade after Motherwell's death.

That is why Robert Motherwell is still quite unknown in Europe-and in turn absolutely a case for curious Europeans who are looking art trends

The American painter's oeuvre grazes many of the styles that the "average European avant-garde art lover" appreciates: surrealism and abstract expressionism , color field and informel .

The most famous works of art by Robert Motherwell

In the United States, every citizen knows with art knowledge at primary school level Robert Motherwell's works, in Europe a few freaks and fans know eccentric art styles a few works by Robert Motherwell. The Motherwells, which are best known in the USA, probably all have to be presented here:

One of the earliest pictures Motherwells (from 1943) refers to his 1941 stay in Mexico: "Pancho Villa, Dead and Alive" , gouache and oil processed with collage techniques on cardboard, today in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In Mexico, Motherwell came across a search photo of the revolutionary leader Pancho Villa, which was murdered in 1923, which inspired him to form a pre-expressionist work.

Clean on the line between referenced painting and free abstract expressionism, while touching several topics that should play a role in the art of the artist. In the allusion to the Mexican Revolution, this work is already preparing the topic of Motherwell's trend -setting elegy for the Spanish Republic : Bildlink

Probably in 1949 and in any case at about this time "At Five in the Afternoon" , casein on drawing box, was created today in the Helen Frankenthaler collection in New York. The picture began in 1948 as a small ink draw on a poem by Harold Rosenberg and was reissued in 1949 by Motherwell as a small painting. The name is a line from the "Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias" by Federico Garcia Lorca (Lament for famous Spanish bullfighter of famous Spanish poet, masterfully recited in the following video, about all 25 "At Five in the Afternoon" lines).

"At Five in the Afternoon" is the first work of the "Elegies to the Spanish Republic" series and prepares a formal and aesthetic system that will define the whole series: Bildlink

"Je T'Aime No.2" from 1955, oil on canvas, today in the Mr. Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert Harrison in New York, is an early example of Motherwell's second important series of paintings that he put together between 1953 and 1957 when his second marriage came to an end. A work in energetic, emotionally charged painting style, bright, in impressive colors, with the egg -shaped and straight shapes completely "brand Motherwell".

Across the screen, Motherwell wrote the French sentence "Je T'Aime" ("I love you"), an allusion to the determining influence of French culture on his work and very likely also an expression of the personal feelings, which at that time deals: Bildlink .

"Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 110" by (1971), acrylic, pen and coal on canvas, today Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum , New York, is another example from the main work of the same name Motherwells. His wistful lawsuit (indictment) to the Spanish Republic comprises a total of over 140 paintings on which Motherwell worked throughout his long career. With this mammoth work, he wanted to set a monument to the Spanish Civil War because the Spanish civil war is the symbol of human tragedies for him, which occur in the context of oppression and injustice. No. 110 is typical of the series with its strong black and white palette and the combination of egg-shaped and rod-like lines/shapes; The entire visual language system of the series subject of a large debate in which little unity could still be reached in the follow -up art science.

"The Blue Painting Lesson: A Study in Painterly Logic, Number One of Five" from 1973, oil on canvas and today in the collection of the Dedalus Foundation New York, is a picturesque study and part of the "open series" composed between 1968 and 1972. Again, this picture shows the simple but effective formal construct of the series: full and almost monochrome colored background, then highlighted a two- or three-page box, a memory of the window images in the work of many European champions. Here is one of the "Blue Painting Lessons": Bildlink

"Tobacco Roth-Handle" from 1974, four-color lithograph and screen printing on HMP letters and today in the Walker Art Center Minneapolis, with its synthesis of collage and printing technique, shows two important basic techniques from motherwell work. Directly from the Walker Art Center: Bildlink .

A look at Robert Motherwell's studio (video)

Robert Motherwell's path to art: from "Everything just not bank" ...

Robert Motherwell was born on January 24, 1915 in Aberdeen, WA, United States . The small town in the state of Washington is quite on the edge of the United States, "at the top left" (extreme northwest) near the Canadian border.

Painted on the Pacific Bay of Gray's Harbor, pretty, rural, in 2010 with 16,896 inhabitants exactly populated as the picturesque Eltville am Rhein; The townscape determines by single -family houses made of wood, the American flag part of the street scene.

Aberdeen was first mentioned in 1881 and was of greater importance for the last time at the end of the 19th century. The last time the small town was on everyone's lips when the "son of the city" Kurt Cobain was famous at the end of the millennium as a singer and guitarist of the rock band Nirvana and joined the "Club 27" ; with the "founding members" Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison (and another 34 famous musicians from Alexandra to Amy Winehouse, who were not older than 27 years).

An idyllic environment in which Motherwell should have spent a quiet childhood, creative-artistic suggestion from concentrated art life or on-site art presentation.

As a musician, Motherwell would have been born into a conspiring environment, since Aberdeen produced the exceptional musicians Patrick Simmons , Matt Lukin , Dale Crover and Kurt Cobain and thus earned "Place of birth of the Grunge" However, this only long after Motherwell youth in Aberdeen.

Motherwell's creativity will have been more excited in the family environment - there was certainly art education for the descendants of the well -stocked local bank manager Motherwell Senior. The young Motherwell also spent a considerable part of his youth in the dry areas of Central California in recreational sites for asthma, perhaps not only dry air at one of these institutions, but also enthusiasm for art.

However, the young Robert refused to enter the footsteps of the bank director's father and showed an affinity for more intellectual and creative employment at an early stage; A scholarship at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles is said to have belonged to his early education.

After graduation, Motherwell Junior continued to orientate itself towards the "formation of the creative mind". Without immediately committed and limited to active art, he completes a broad training:

... about the best education in the world ...

From 1932, his 17 year old, Motherwell studied.

At the California School of Fine Arts (since 1961 San Francisco Art Institute) art, in Stanford and Harvard (on the opposite, eastern “end of the USA”) philosophy and French literature, in 1937 he abandoned his bachelor's degree in philosophy at the Californian Stanford University. During his studies, Motherwell had extensively dealt with the work of the natural philosopher and scientific theorist Alfred North Whitehead and the poetry of the French symbolists . Both important inspiration, among other things, for the development of a logical and independent thinking, here Motherwell's spirit is said to be open to the possibilities that the abstraction in writing (and visual) art offers.

After completing the philosophy, Motherwell was appointed to a doctoral program and also begins with work, but interrupts in 1938 in order to embarked on the common educational trip to Europe at the time. During his almost two-year stay in Paris, he made friends with the art legend Piet Mondrian (founder of abstract painting) and Fernand Léger (Kubist and famous art counterfeit). Influences on Motherwell's art pens can be assumed, it is said to have fallen in love with the art of European modernity.

At that time, Motherwell wanted to take a career as an artist, but his father pushed for hedging through crisis -proof vocational training . So from 1940 the stay abroad first followed a degree; This time art history at the New York Columbia University . At the Columbia, Motherwell was lucky enough to be taught by a luminary in art history:

The old master of art history Meyer Schapiro, who began studying at the Columbia in 1924, was appointed an assistant professor in 1928 (at the age of 24), received a decent professorship in 1952 and was released in honor in 1973 after 49 years of Columbia University (so shortly afterwards in the exclusive "American Academy of Arts and Letter" to employ outstanding artists).

Schapiro arranged Motherwell and other prospective artists for lessons to the new Swiss writer and surrealistic painter Kurt Seligmann . Who in turn made him known to other European surrealists who had escaped their Nazi-contaminated home countries to New York.

Motherwell was deeply impressed by their idea of ​​seeing the artwork as a manifestation of the artist's subconscious, it should become one of the central basic ideas of his work. With the arrival in New York, Motherwell also came into contact with the circle of painters who would later identify the core of the "abstract expressionists" and dealt with their artificial execution.

After several studies, a longer educational stay in Europe and numerous inspiring acquaintances with surrealistic and expressionist artists, Motherwell belonged to the intellectual elite among the abstract expressionists of the New York school .

In the follow -up art science, there is never any agreement (almost, whole unity without a few critical votes against in science) that the outstanding intellect is shining from his pictures. You can find it in the considered painting style, the simple shapes and the courageous color contrasts and the fine, variable balance, in which Motherwell dominated precisely and unchecked, powerful brush strokes on the painting ground.

You can see him reflected in the results of this painting style, in these dialogues with philosophy, contemporary art and its history, which show a serious and superior commitment to the fate of people, in life and death, in oppression and revolution.

Motherwell has been based on large role models:

At Joan Miró, Motherwell liked everything that he wrote in 1959 in an essay for the magazine "Art News". He creates a sensitive balance between nature and the work made by human, the manufacture of which has almost been lost in contemporary art and which means that his work, which is usually underestimated in its originality, immediately pulls the viewer into depth. Judge yourself at the "Carnival of Harlequin" from 1924-25: Bildlink .

Picasso was a “relative in the spirit” for Motherwell, as Picasso insisted Motherwell on a form in the painting because it is essential as the bearer of the meaning. Exemplary Picasso forms shows the "Seated Bather" (sitting bath station) from 1930, oil on canvas, today in the Museum of Modern Art New York: Bildlink .

Motherwell's third model was his long-time friend and abstract-expressionist sculptor David Smith . Which he appreciated as a really independent person and as a educated man with great art -historical knowledge and because of his joy in "Irish Whiskey and Guinness Stout" ... David Smith's "Home of the Welder" from 1945, Stahl, Today Tate Gallery London: Bildlink .

... finally to art in practice

In 1940 Motherwell met the Chilean architect, sculptor, painter and surrealist Robert Matta , with whom he went on a trip to Mexico in the same year, where he met the Austrian surrealist Wolfgang Paal . Motherwell stayed with Paalen in Mexico for several months and worked on his art magazine Dyn after returning to New York from 1941.

During the time in Mexico, the first works of art on Motherwells, eleven with feather and ink were created, which together form the "Mexican SketchBook" . These early work show surrealistic influences and are still abstract in their essence, especially in the fine balance between formal composition and spontaneous invention. They are viewed and discussed by the artist friends, but the success to the outside should be a little long in coming.

Motherwell's career only got the crucial start -up help in 1943: The famous patron Peggy Guggenheim (patron = extincing genre of financially independent sponsors of medium -sized gifted) gave him the opportunity to create new work that should be shown on a show by collages of several European modernists.

Motherwell immediately and enthusiastically turned to the technology of the collage , which he will use again and again across his career. The pieces selected for the show consisted of a mixture of torn paper, expressively applied color and a series of violent topics referred to the Second World War; They aroused great interest from the audience. A solo exhibition in Peggy Guggenheim's Art of this Century Gallery in New York followed in 1944, the contract with the art dealer Sam Kootz in 1945.

With this contract, Motherwell was a made man, with Betty Parsons' Gallery and Peggy Guggenheim's gallery "Art of this Century", the Sam Kootz gallery in New York in the 1940s and 1950s was one of the most important sculptures. Who, with Samuel Melvin Kootz, had a generous sponsor and busy businessman who wanted to make his special area of ​​interest " abstract exepressionism " beyond the borders of the United States and did that ... it could hardly have been better. In addition to Motherwell, Kootz has also William Baziotes and Jackson Pollock to start the career, pioneering exhibitions from the early days of abstract expressionism go back to him.

And above all, Kootz made sure that Motherwell was there at every exhibition in which the words "abstract expressionism" were even whispered quietly. The times withdrawn studies and relaxed Mexico trips were now over, from the meeting with Kootz Motherwell should never have been bored for the next few decades.

He was not only dealing with the production of art; As early as the early 1940s, Motherwell had started a parallel career as a teacher, editor and writer . In the next two decades he taught at Black Mountain College in North Carolina and on Hunter College of the City University of New York.

He helped to establish Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman , the "Subjects of the Artist" A little later he edited extremely influential documents of modern art: the publication "Possibilities" and the "The Dada Painters and Poets" anthology (1951), Motherwell should be involved in such "side jobs".

From 1948 he was busy with the "Elegia on the Spanish Republic" , which was a series of more than 140 works that is considered his main work .

From 1953 to 1957 the "Je T'Aime" series , in the 1960s Motherwell approached Morris Louis Color-Field-Painting and began to reinvent his collages as a limited edition of Lithografien -Motherwell was the only one from the first generation of the abstract expression graphics as an important part of his artistic work used.

In 1968 it was the turn of the third large series, on the occasion of the dissolution of his marriage with the artist Helen Frankenthaler, "The Opens" . How the earlier series designed based on a simple formal construct, in which Motherwell saw endless space for variation and extrapolation.

Motherwell is one of a few abstract expressionists who remained productive for a long time (here: 30 years) after the start -up phase. He left us a lot of art when he died in his house in Provincetown Massachusetts in July 1991.

Many, many exhibitions, not necessarily in the centers of art

Motherwell can look back on 575 group exhibitions and 155 individual exhibitions , together over 700 public exhibitions.

He has exhibited across the world, of course, in the large centers of contemporary art, but also in many American (and a few European) small towns.

Most of its exhibitions took place in the USA (475), followed by Germany (70), Great Britain (44), Spain (33) and Italy (20).

Motherwell exhibited 150 x together with Willem de Kooning , 123 x with Sam Francis , 110 x with Andy Warhol , 110 x with Jackson Pollock and 104 x with Roy Lichtenstein ... (although he represents the intellectual counterpart to some of these artists for mockery art-like).

Robert Motherwell 2017

Robert Motherwell was just exactly a year ago (July 16, 1991) a quarter of a century. But he left us art, today his work is represented by 60 galleries , which are mainly in the art centers of Europe and the USA.

In 16 countries around the world, works Motherwells were recorded in 95 public collections so that they can be viewed by the people of the world, also in the future:

• Australia : Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, QLD
• Brazil : Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo
• Germany : Städel Museum Frankfurt/Main, Sprengel Museum Hannover, Städtisches Museum Abteiberg Mönchengladbach
• Finland : Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki
• Great Britain : Tate Britain London
• Iran : Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, Tehran
• Ireland : Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin
• Israel : The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
• Italy : Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice
• Japan : Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo
• Canada : Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, on
• Colombia : Museo Botero Bogota, Museo de Arte Moderno La Tertulia Cali
• Austria : Museum Liaunig, Neuhaus
• Switzerland : Art Museum Basel, UBS Art Collection Zurich
• Spain : Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, ​​Fundación Joan Miró Barcelona, ​​Museo Guggenheim de Arte Moderno Y Contemporáneo Bilbao, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía Madrid, Es Baluard Museu D'Art Modern Palma de Mallorca, Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo Sevilla
• USA : University Museum of Contemporary Art Amherst Ma, The University of Misigan Museum of Art Ann Arbor Wed, Kennedy Museum of Art Athens Oh, The High Museum of Art Atlanta GA, Harry Ransom Center Austin Tx, The Baltimore Museum of Art Baltimore MD, University of Maine Museum of Arts Bangor Me, Cranbrook Art Museum Bloomfield Hills Mi, Boca Museum of Art Boca Raton Fl, Museum of Fine Arts Boston Boston Ma, Albright-Knox Art Gallery Buffalo NY, with List Visual Arts Center Cambridge Ma, Pomona College Museum of Art Claremont CA, The Cleveland Museum of Art ColleGeveland Oh, Berman Museum of Art Collegeville, Colorado Springs Fine Center Colorado Springs Co, Columbia Museum of Art Columbia SC, The Art Museum of South Texas Corpus Christi Tx, Figge Art Museum Davenport IA, The Dayton Art Institute Dayton Oh, Wright State University Art Galleries Dayton Oh, Denver Art Museum Denver Co, the MoST Art Center Des Moines Ia, Koehnline Museum of Art of Plaines Il, tweed Museum of Art Duluth MN, Guild Hall Museum East Hampton Ny, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art Eugene Or, Fort Wayne Museum of Art Fort Wayne in, The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth Forth Tx, Honolulu Museum of Art Honululu Hi, Museum of Fine ARTS HOUSTON Houston Tx, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art Kansas City Mo, Polk Museum of Art Lakeland Fl, Sheldon Museum of Art Lincoln Ne, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Moca Grand Avenue Los Angeles, CA, Speed ​​Art Museum Louisville Ky, Frost Art Museum Miami Fl, Milwaukee Art Museum Wi, Walker Art Center Minneapolis MN, Masur Museum of Art Monroe La, Montclair Art Museum Montclair NJ, Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery Nashville TN, New Britain Museum of American Art New Britain CT, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art New City Ny, Palm Springs Art Museum Palm Springs CA, The Risd Museum University of Rhode Island Providence Ri, David Winton Bell Gallery Providence Ri, Taubman Museum of Art Roanoke WV, Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis University Museum of Art Saint Louis Mon, The de Younum, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, San Francisco, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art San Francisco CA, San Jose Museum of Art San Jose Ca, The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Garden San Marino Ca, Art Museum UC Santa Barbara Ca, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art Scottsdale AZ, Marywood University Art Gallery Scranton Pa, Henry Art Seattle Wa, Daum Museum of Contemporary Art Sedalia Mo, Sioux City Art Center Sioux City IA, Arizona State University Art Museum Tempe Az, Swope Art Museum Terre Haute in, Brauer Museum of Art Valparaiso in, The Phillips Collection Washington DC, Norton Museum of Art Palm Beach, FL, Ulrich Museum of Art Wichita KS, Reynolda House Museum of American Art Winston-Salem NC

In view of the nationwide-covered supply of Motherwell art, some European art experts may be relieved: you don't have to know if it is almost only in the USA ... this (for one of the most famous artists in the whole) disproportionate presence in the US already knows, can only win.

Motherwell left us students who have developed his way of working. In his long teaching activity on Hunter College (City University New York) and at Black Mountain College North Carolina, Motherwell brought many students close to his well -thought -out theses, "color field painter" Kenneth Noland , Robert Rauschenberg and Cy Twombly z. B. studied at Motherwell and were indisputably influenced by him.

Tip for rarity collectors "Gallery Boisserée-Modern and Contemporary Art" is still available . A small tour of contemporary art, on 144 pages, with 120 exhibits and 129 colored images, also for download Boisseree.com

Stories about Robert Motherwell

about Robert Motherwell's private life , especially no scandal reports, only clever quotes from Robert Motherwell have been handed down. Can't be, Motherwell has led four marriages (= three divorces behind)? One or the other Yellow-Press report about one or the other divorce will have given Motherwells, but at Motherwell's times you could also divorce as a public person without inevitably putting the press into turmoil for weeks.

If there was not much to report on a divorce, not much was reported. Even then, journalists were not necessarily rich in their salary, but at least got a salary that is usually sufficient to live and therefore did not need to invent scandal reports for weeks for weeks.

The clever quotes also bring much more than a new edition of boring rose war-steered, always the same in green because the brightest do not argue (they can be disagreent):

To art and art history:

"Every intelligent pinterer carries the whole culture of modern painting in his head. It is his real subject, of which everything he paints in Both an homage and a critique, and everything he Says is a gloss."

(Every intelligent painter has the entire cultural history of modern painting in her head. She is his real topic, does everything he paints on homage or criticism, and everything he says about the mere note., Wikiquote - Robert Motherwell ).

In contrast to classic and modern art:

"Most Painting in the European tradition was Painting the mask. Modern Art rejected all that. Our subject matter was the person behind the mask."

("The mask was painted on most paintings of European tradition. Modern art rejects this. Our subject was the person behind the mask.", Theartstory.org )

For the development of artists (or/and for self -marketing of artists):

"Every artist's problem is to invent Himelf."

(Every artist has the problem of self -finding., Theartstory.org )

On the morale of the artist:

"Without Ethical Consciousness, a Painter is only a decorator."

(A painter without ethical consciousness is just a decorator., Wikiquote.org )

On the position of the artist in modern societies:

"In this world modern artists form a child of spiritual underground."

(In this world, contemporary artists form a kind of spiritual surface, isabelgrundy.wordpress.com )

And at the end of the saying for all painting (from wikiquote.org ):

"... Painting is the mind realizing itself in Color." ... painting is the spirit that creates itself in color.