Transcript
Robert Motherwell
Artist, Writer and Intellectual
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Early Years
• A local
• Developed a love for big skies and bold colors
• A philosopher
• Travels
• $50 a week for life
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WWII
• Prior, US art based in realism, impressionism and early abstract movements
• European artists took refuge in the US, including the Surrealists
• Brought a great renaissance of ideas to US
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The Surrealists
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What Were They About?
• Fantastic imagery; elements of surprise, spontaniety and juxtaposition
• Highly pyschological and dreamlike
• Expressing the subconscious
• Automatism
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Robert Motherwell
• Highly educated, innovative and respected
• The New York School
• Youngest member
• WPA connection
• A cultural translator
• 1944 - Art of this Century Solo exhibition
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Abstract Impressionism
• Large-scale and explosive gestures; “action painting”
• Intended to convey feeling and emotion
• Desire to give spontaneous expression to the unconscious
• Getting at a fundamental, unconscious truth
New York replaced Paris as center of the art world
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Elegies to the Spanish Republic
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At Five in the Afternoon
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The Voyage
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Malaga
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Catalonia
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Kootz Gallery Show
• 1950
• Common shapes and forms
• Spanish paintings under common name
• Art Digest: one of today’s most thinking painters
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At Five in the Afternoon 1950
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Elegy to the Spanish Republic No 34
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Elegy to the Spanish Republic 108
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Catalan Elegy
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An Homage
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I’ve made pictures that are failures but few that are lies
Video 10:04 to11:53
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Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011)
Married to Motherwell 1958-1971
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Mountains and Sea
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Two Figures No 2
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Lyric Suite 1965
• Lifelong love of paper
• 560 ink drawings meant to be 1000
• Based on Alban Berg’s string quartet
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The Open Series
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Open No 151
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In Ochre with Scarlet Spot
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Hollow Men
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If you know what it’s going to look like, why bother making it?
Stanley William Hayter
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Armory Show
1913
Vietnam War Ends
1975
Born1915
Emergence of Pop Art
1960s
Motherwell begins
Elegy series
1948
Max Ernst Paints
“Bride”
1938
Surrealist Manifesto Published
1924
Marries Frankenthaler
1958WWII Ends
1945Stock
Market Crash
1929WWI Ends
1918
Begins Open Series
1968
Dies
1991Robert Motherwell
Timeline
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Influence of Bold Color
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Influence of Collage
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At Auction
Sold for $2.1M in 2005
Sold for $3.6M in 2012Saturday, March 23, 13
SF MOMA
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Fine Arts Museums of SF
• Collection search tool unusable
• ~40 works in collection
• Achenbach Foundation for the graphic arts
• Very few on display
What is a museum’s obligation to exhibit?
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