Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 2 - Flipbook - Page 21
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references
Celentano 1957, pp. 33, 107, illus. n.p.
(fig. 38), referred to in text and in illus.
as El Miedo de la Obscuridad; Mattison
1985a, p. 93, illus. p. 93 (fig. 10);
Mattison 1985b, pp. 72–79, 90–91, 110,
177, 201, 232, illus. n.p. (fig. 37);
Mattison 1987, pp. 56–59, 64, 73, 93,
147, 177, 199, illus. p. 64 (fig. 19);
Kutner 1992a, sec. C, p. 4; Sawin 1995,
p. 230, as El Miedo de la Obscuridad;
Gilbert 1998, pp. 252, 254, 256, 338,
illus. p. 545 (fig. 30, erroneously as
Recuerdo de Coyoacun).
comments
The earliest known version of this
work, in which two of the white rectangles were painted in darker colors,
was reproduced in the catalogue for the
1942 First Papers of Surrealism exhibition, although it is not certain that the
work was actually shown there; in that
catalogue it was titled El Miedo de la
Obscuridad (Fear of Darkness). The
present title, however, was mentioned
as early as September 25, 1942, in a
letter from Motherwell to Meyer
Schapiro, in which he said that he had
given it “the somewhat evasive title
(though since I know the content of the
picture, I don’t care if anyone else
does) of ‘Recuerdo de Coyoacan,’ ”
which he translated as “Remembrance
of Coyoacan” (see “Writings by the
Artist,” in the Bibliography; the accents
are missing in the letter). This original
title was not published until 1978, when
the painting was shown in the traveling
exhibition Abstract Expressionism: The
Formative Years. In the catalogue for
that exhibition, this work was also
reproduced for the first time in its present state; when preparing the painting
for that exhibition, Motherwell had
supervised its restoration and made
additional revisions in response to the
exigencies of conservation.
Motherwell stated that the mood of
this painting was “anxiety” (Mattison
1987, p. 57). Coyoacán is the neighborhood in Mexico City near where
Motherwell lived during the fall of
1941, next door to the Surrealist painter
Wolfgang Paalen. It is also where
Leon Trotsky had been assassinated
only a year earlier, in August 1940. In
Motherwell’s September 25, 1942, letter to Meyer Schapiro, he explains that
he had recently been reading Trotsky’s
History of the Russian Revolution and
that this picture was “an image of his
murder.” The relation to Trotsky is also
elaborated in handwritten notes by
Motherwell from the summer of 1942
(see fig. 177 in volume 1), in which
he lists several potential titles for the
picture, including La assassination a
Coyoacan, La Morte a Coyoacan, and
La Chambre de Morte a Coyoacan (misspelling of “Mort” and accents missing
in the original; see “Writings by the
Artist,” in the Bibliography). A letter
from Motherwell to arts patron William
Lee McKim, dated February 22, 1946,
discusses this work in terms of “a
theme I constantly recur to, of dead
(and assassinated) political leaders
(e.g., ‘Remembrance of Coyoacan,’ exhibited with French surrealists in N.Y. in
’43 [sic])” (see “Writings by the Artist,”
in the Bibliography).
p9
{ Title unknown}
Ca. 1942
Oil on canvas (?)
42 x 34 in. (106.7 x 86.4 cm), approx.
inscriptions
Unknown
present owner
Unknown
provenance
The artist
group exhibitions
Whitlaw Reid Mansion, New York,
1942 (not in catalogue).
references
VVV 1943, illus. p. 86 (in exhibition,
reproduced upside down); Gibson
1984, illus. p. 488 (fig. 50, in exhibition); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte
Reina Sofía exh. cat. 1999, illus. p. 267
(in exhibition); Noguchi Museum exh.
cat. 2005, illus. p. 118 (fig. 69, in
exhibition).
comments
In our reproduction of this work, it is
highlighted in a detail of a photograph
pai ntin gs on c anvas and panel
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