Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 2 - Flipbook - Page 24
p. 34, color illus. p. 57; Seitz 1983,
pp. 22, 51, color illus. n.p. (fig. 151);
Gaugh 1985, p. 73; Kimball 1985, p. 32;
Mattison 1985b, pp. 62, 117–19, illus.
n.p. (fig. 66); Mattison 1987, pp. 42,
97–98, illus. p. 99 (fig. 32); Mattison
1988, p. 176, illus. p. 177 (fig. 3);
Mackie 1989, pp. 183, 184, illus. n.p.,
as Personage (Dead Personage); Terenzio
1992b, p. 87; Falgàs 1995, p. 22; OrrCahall et al. 1995, pp. 172–73, color
illus. p. 170; Gilbert 1998, p. 454; Peggy
Guggenheim Collection exh. cat. 2003,
pp. 307, 311, as Untitled (Mexico), illus.
p. 77; Arca, Chiesa di San Marco, exh.
cat. 2008, illus. p. 140 (in exhibition).
comments
Motherwell first called this picture
Untitled (Mexico), then Dead Personage;
but the title was changed to Personage
by his dealer, Samuel M. Kootz. In a
letter of February 22, 1946, from
Motherwell to arts patron William
Lee McKim, the artist pointed out the
relationship of his title to “a theme I
constantly recur to, of dead (and assassinated) political leaders. . . . The kind
of picture I am talking about is what
French poets, musicians, and painters
mean when they name a work ‘le tombeau de so-and-so.’ In the picture is
quite evidently the contour of a coffin,
open at the top, which at the same time
is a door, with gardens and night at the
sides. But these associations have been
dropt [sic] by Mr Kootz calling it simply ‘personage’—which does not seem
to me to affect its general tonal quality
which, for me, is sombre, mournful,
subdued, with an undertone of violence, but deliberately generalized in
the way that unprogramatic [sic] music
is—that is why I hate here to give a
‘program’ ” (see “Writings by the
Artist,” in the Bibliography).
p12
The Spanish Prison (Window)
Alternative Title: The Spanish Prison
1943–44
Oil on canvas
52¼ x 42⅛ in. (132.7 x 107 cm)
inscriptions
Recto, upper left [date revised]: Robert
Motherwell 194[3]4
Verso covered by relining, no longer
visible
artist’s studio number
p43/44-5011
present owner
Mr. and Mrs. Meredith J. Long,
Houston
provenance
Mr. and Mrs. H. Gates Lloyd, 1946;
[Christie’s, New York, May 5, 1987,
lot 69, illus.]; Mr. and Mrs. Meredith J.
Long, Houston, 1987
solo exhibitions
Art of This Century, New York,
October 1944, cat. no. 6.
Museum of Modern Art, New York,
Robert Motherwell, September 1965
(traveling), New York, cat. no. 7, illus.
p. 12 (in early state); Amsterdam, cat.
no. 6, illus. n.p. (in early state); Essen,
cat. no. 7; Turin, cat. no. 7, illus. p. 67
(pl. 6, in early state).
group exhibitions
Mortimer Brandt Gallery, New York,
1944, cat. no. 43, as The Spanish
Prison.
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts,
Philadelphia, 1946, cat. no. 283, as
Spanish Prison.
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts,
Philadelphia, 1958, cat. no. 208, as
Spanish Prison.
Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1963,
cat. no. 284, as Spanish Prison.
American Federation of Arts, New
York, 1967 (circulating), cat. no. 43,
illus. p. 14, as Spanish Prison.
Institute of Contemporary Art,
University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, 1967, cat. no. 23, as
Spanish Prison.
Institute of Contemporary Art,
University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, 1972, as Spanish Prison.
Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art,
Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., 1978
12
paintings on ca n v a s an d p a n e l
(traveling), Ithaca and New York, illus.
p. 91 (fig. 94); Tokyo, illus. n.p.
Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1986,
illus. p. 52, as Spanish Prison.
references
Janis 1944, p. 50, as The Spanish Prison;
Motherwell in Janis 1944, p. 65, illus.
p. 65 (pl. 39, in early state), referred
to in text and in illus. as The Spanish
Prison; New York Sun 1944, p. 9, as
Spanish Prison; R[iley] 1944b, p. 8,
as Spanish Prison; Stroup 1944, p. 16, as
The Spanish Prison; Motherwell in Tyler
1945, p. 39; Weitz 1950, pp. 88–92, as
The Spanish Prison; Seitz 1953, p. 81,
illus. p. 81 (in early state), referred to in
text and in illus. as Spanish Prison; Seitz
1955, pp. 61–62, 137–38, 192, 213, 279–
80, 399, illus. n.p. (fig. 149, in early
state), referred to in text and in illus. as
The Spanish Prison; Lanes 1959, p. 29,
as The Spanish Prison; Vogue 1965,
illus. p. 140 (cat. no. 2, in exhibition);
Arnason 1966a, p. 34, illus. p. 26 (fig. 9,
in early state), referred to in text and
in illus. as Spanish Prison; Robertson
1966a, p. 91, as Spanish Prison; Cooney
1968, p. 40, illus. n.p. (pl. 17); Arnason
1969, illus. p. 50 (in early state, as
Spanish Prison); Buettner 1973, p. 253,
illus. p. 440 (fig. 18, in early state),
referred to in text and in illus. as
Spanish Prison; Hobbs 1975b, pp. 124–
26, 132, 137, illus. n.p. (pl. 2, in early
state); Arnason 1977b, pp. 21–22, illus.
p. 17 (pl. 6, in early state, as Spanish
Prison Window); Hadler 1977, p. 107,
illus. p. 108 (fig. 15, in early state),
referred to in text and in illus. as
Spanish Prison; Carmean 1978, p. 100,
illus. p. 100 (fig. 5); Polcari 1979, p. 133,
as The Spanish Prison; Foster 1980,
p. 11, as Spanish Prison; Buettner 1981,
pp. 76–77, illus. p. 78 (pl. 10, in early
state); Arnason 1982, pp. 21–22, illus.
p. 17 (pl. 6, in early state), referred to
in text and in illus. as Spanish Prison
Window; Seitz 1983, pp. 22, 51–52, 72,
79, 103, 147, color illus. n.p. (fig. 161);
Van Hook 1983, p. 106, as Spanish
Prison Window; Alley 1984, p. 58, as
Spanish Prison Window; Collins 1984,
p. 94, illus. p. 94 (fig. 1, in early state);
Mattison 1985b, pp. 30–31, 60, 119–20,
179, 206, 240, illus. n.p. (fig. 73),
referred to in text and in illus. as The
Spanish Prison; Mattison 1987, pp. 41,
98, 148, 177, 203, illus. p. 101 (fig. 34, in
early state), referred to in text and in
illus. as Spanish Prison; Mackie 1989,
pp. 183, 184; Flam 1991, color illus. n.p.
(pl. 6); Levin 1991, p. 8, illus. p. 9 (fig.
9); Polcari 1991, pp. 53, 302, 304, 307,
illus. p. 302 (fig. 236), referred to in
text and in illus. as The Spanish Prison;
MacLeod 1993, p. 145; Zucker 1997,
pp. 37, 187, as The Spanish Prison
Window; Chalumeau 1998, color
illus. p. 12 (pl. 4), as Prison espagnole
(Spanish Prison); Gilbert 1998, p. 470;
Ward 1998, p. 53, as The Spanish Prison;
Scott and Rutkoff 1999, p. 305, as
Spanish Prison Window; Wentrup 2001,
pp. 46, 54–55, as Spanish Prison Window,
illus. (fig. 11); Anfam 2002, p. 67, as
Spanish Prison Window; Thierolf 2002,
p. 292, illus. p. 292 (fig. 3, in early
state), referred to in text and in illus.
as Spanish Prison Window; Ashton and
Banach 2007, illus. p. 37; Mattison et
al. 2009, p. 14, as Spanish Prison.
comments
This painting was shown in its final
state at Art of This Century in October
1944 as The Spanish Prison (Window),
but it was reproduced in an early state
in Sidney Janis’s book Abstract and
Surrealist Art in America, published that
November, along with Motherwell’s
comments on it in the caption giving
the title as The Spanish Prison (see
Motherwell in Janis 1944, p. 65).
These variations in title and the publication of the early-state photograph
(Juley photo no. 42; j0004838) were
consequences of the time gap between
Motherwell’s submission of materials
to Janis and the book’s publication
date. The photograph of the early state
was widely reproduced until 1978,
when Motherwell had the final state of
the painting photographed for the first
time; and even after that, the early state
was sometimes still reproduced. In
subsequent years, the title given for the
work also varied frequently, with the
word Window sometimes included in or
out of parentheses. In the catalogue for
his 1950 solo exhibition at the Samuel
M. Kootz Gallery, Motherwell wrote
that this painting was the “first of the
‘Spanish Elegies’ ” (see “Writings by
the Artist,” in the Bibliography).
