Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 2 - Flipbook - Page 26
p13
p13
{ Title unknown}
Ca. 1944
Oil on canvas (?)
48 x 38 in. (121.9 x 96.5 cm), approx.
inscriptions
Unknown
present owner
Unknown
provenance
The artist
solo exhibitions
Art of This Century, New York,
October 1944.
comments
Our reproduction of this work is
extracted from a photograph of it on
the wall at Motherwell’s first solo
show at Art of This Century in 1944.
This painting is one of a number of
works in that exhibition that are known
only from photographs, and it is among
the two still-unidentified works listed
under “Oils” on the checklist for it: The
Ambiguity of Experience and Equilibrium
Abstracted. We do not know which titles
14
paintings on ca n v a s an d p a n e l
were assigned to which works, and
after their 1944 showing there is no
further trace of either the paintings or
the titles, except for an inquiry sent to
Peggy Guggenheim in September 1945
about possibly including Equilibrium
Abstracted in the exhibition A Painting
Prophecy—1950 at the Memorial Art
Gallery, University of Rochester, New
York (Dedalus Foundation Archives).
It is possible that the two unidentified
oils were painted over sometime after
the Art of This Century exhibition,
as was the case with another oil painting listed on the same checklist, The
Spanish Jailer’s Wife, which was soon
repainted and retitled Wall Painting
with Stripes (p16).
p14
p14
{ Title unknown}
Ca. 1944
Oil on canvas (?)
54 x 72 in. (137.2 x 182.9 cm), approx.
inscriptions
Recto, upper left: [illegible]
Verso not seen
present owner
Unknown
provenance
The artist
solo exhibitions
Art of This Century, New York,
October 1944.
references
Arnason 1977b, illus. n.p. (pl. 64,
in exhibition); Arnason 1982, illus.
p. 106 (pl. 114, in exhibition); Peggy
Guggenheim Collection exh. cat. 2003,
illus. p. 311 (fig. 139, in exhibition);
Arca, Chiesa di San Marco, exh. cat.
2008, illus. p. 143 (in exhibition).
comments
The painting next to Motherwell in
this photograph, taken at Art of This
Century in October 1944, is one of the
unidentified oil paintings shown there
that was subsequently lost from view
and possibly painted over or destroyed.
See the Comments for p13.
