Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 2 - Flipbook - Page 23
which was meant to be a pivoting figure, painted on both sides of a panel,
that was to have acted as a kind of
turnstile for viewers as they entered the
gallery space and also as a sentinel.
The word no is incised in cursive
handwriting (upside down) into the
surface of the small purple area at the
upper center of this work, an early
instance of Motherwell’s use of words
in his paintings.
It is likely that The Sentinel was the
work exhibited as Painting in the May
1943 Spring Salon for Young Artists exhibition at Art of This Century, as it was
the first work by Motherwell that Peggy
Guggenheim purchased, per the gallery’s sales records for 1942 and 1943
(Bernard Reis Papers, Archives of
American Art). The Sentinel was later
returned to the artist, perhaps as part
of the transaction when Peggy
Guggenheim acquired Motherwell’s
collage Personage (Autoportrait) (c8).
p11
p11
Personage
provenance
Norton Museum of Art, West Palm
Beach, Fla., 1946
Alternative Titles: Untitled (Mexico);
Dead Personage
1943
Oil, charcoal, and graphite on canvas
48 x 38 in. (121.9 x 96.5 cm)
solo exhibitions
Art of This Century, New York,
October 1944, cat. no. 3, as Untitled
(Mexico).
inscriptions
Recto, upper left: Robert Motherwell
1943
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo,
1983 (traveling), cat. no. 6, color illus.
p. 57.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,
New York, March 1987 (traveling),
cat. no. 30, illus. p. 56.
Verso (on upper flap of the canvas):
Motherwell #1
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,
New York, 1984, cat. no. 14.
Verso covered by relining, no longer
visible
group exhibitions
Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach,
Fla., 1946, cat. no. 27.
artist’s studio number
p43-5001
Playhouse Gallery, Miami, 1959.
references
Farber 1944, p. 626, as [Untitled]
(Mexico); Museum of Modern Art
Bulletin 1951, illus. p. 13; Seitz 1955,
pp. 61, 136, illus. n.p. (fig. 139); College
Art Journal 1957, illus. p. 84; Arnason
1977b, illus. n.p. (pl. 63, in exhibition);
Cavaliere 1979a, illus. p. 29, as
Personnage; Arnason 1982, illus. p. 106
(pl. 113, in exhibition); Ashton 1983,
present owner
Norton Museum of Art. Purchase, the
Palm Beach Art League Construction
Account, 46.10
Art Gallery, McCormick Place,
Chicago, 1960, cat. no. 20.
John and Mable Ringling Museum of
Art, Sarasota, Fla., 1962.
Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art,
Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., 1978
(traveling), Ithaca and New York, illus.
p. 91 (fig. 95); Tokyo, color illus. n.p.
Visual Arts Gallery, Florida
International University, Miami, 1982,
cat. no. 18.
pai ntin gs on c anvas and panel
11
