Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 2 - Flipbook - Page 15
p2
p2
Three Figures
Ca. 1941
Oil on canvas
41½ x 33½ in. (105.4 x 85.1 cm)
inscriptions
Recto not signed, not dated
Verso: For Livingston + Virginia
Robert Motherwell 1942
Verso (on frame) [crossed out]:
[Robert Motherwell «El Miedo
de la Obscuridad» Juillet 1942]
present owner
Martha Gearhart Schermerhorn
provenance
Livingston and Virginia Gearhart, 1942;
Livingston Gearhart, 1953; Martha
Gearhart Schermerhorn, 1984
references
Waring 2002, p. 206, as The Three
Sisters.
comments
This work was probably begun toward
the end of 1941, after Motherwell had
returned to New York from Mexico. He
may have worked on it until 1942, but
the 1942 date on the verso refers to
when he dedicated it to his friends, the
composer Livingston Gearhart (1916–
1996) and the concert pianist Virginia
Gearhart (b. 1915). The crossed-out
inscription on the back of the frame
refers to Recuerdo de Coyoacán (p8),
which was originally titled El Miedo de
la Obscuridad. Motherwell had reused
the frame from that picture for Three
Figures when he gave the work to the
Gearharts late in 1942.
This painting is referred to as
Three Figures in a letter of May 22,
1946, from Motherwell to Dorothy
Miller, curator of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art,
New York; this is his only written
reference to its title (see “Writings
by the Artist,” in the Bibliography).
p3
The Little Spanish Prison
Alternative Title: Abstraction with
Yellow Stripes
1941–44/ca. 1959/1969
Oil on canvas
27¼ x 17⅛ in. (69.2 x 43.5 cm)
inscriptions
Recto not signed, not dated
Verso covered by relining, no longer
visible
artist’s studio numBer
p41-1529; p41-5044
present owner
The Museum of Modern Art,
New York. Gift of Renate Ponsold
Motherwell
provenance
Renate Ponsold Motherwell; Museum
of Modern Art, New York, 1985
solo exhiBitions
Art of This Century, New York,
October 1944, cat. no. 5.
Arts Club of Chicago, 1946 (traveling),
cat. no. 2, as Abstraction with Yellow
Stripes.
New Gallery, Bennington College, Vt.,
1959, cat. no. 4.
Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo,
Brazil, 1961, cat. no. 1.
Pasadena Art Museum, Calif.,
February 1962, cat. no. 1, illus. n.p.
Museum of Modern Art, New York,
Robert Motherwell, September 1965
(traveling), New York, cat. no. 6, illus.
p. 16; Amsterdam, cat. no. 5, illus. n.p.;
Essen, cat. no. 6; Turin, cat. no. 6, illus.
p. 66 (pl. 66).
Art Museum, Princeton University,
N.J., 1973, cat. no. 54, illus. p. 40.
Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City,
1975, cat. no. 1.
Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, 1976
(traveling), cat. no. 1, color illus. p. 55,
illus. p. 97.
Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de
Paris, 1977, color illus. n.p.
Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1978,
cat. no. 1, illus. p. 14.
Centro Cultural de la Caixa de
Pensions, Barcelona, 1980 (traveling),
pai ntin gs on c anvas and panel
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