Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 3 - Flipbook - Page 14
c1
c1
Pierrot’s Hat
Alternative Title: Collage
1943
Watercolor, gouache, pasted papers,
pasted glass button, and ink on
paperboard
19¾ x 14⅛ in. (50.2 x 35.9 cm)
inscriptions
Recto, lower center: motherwell 43
artist’s studio number
c43-5046; c43-5085
present owner
Unknown
provenance
Mr. and Mrs. Pierre Chareau, ca. 1944;
Dollie Chareau, 1950; unknown
owner, 1967
solo exhibitions
Samuel M. Kootz Gallery, New York,
October 1949.
New Gallery, Bennington College, Vt.,
1959, cat. no. 5, as Collage.
Museum of Modern Art, New York,
Robert Motherwell, September 1965
2
collages
(traveling), New York, cat. no. 2;
Amsterdam, cat. no. 2, illus. n.p.;
Essen, cat. no. 2; Turin, cat. no. 2,
illus. p. 62 (pl. 2), as Collage.
references
Arnason 1966a, p. 23, illus. p. 25
(fig. 4), referred to in text and in illus.
as Collage; Wescher 1968, pp. 300–301;
Pleynet 1977, p. 189, as Collage; Arnason
1982, color illus. p. 19 (pl. 8); Mattison
1985b, pp. 97–101, illus. n.p. (fig. 59, as
Untitled); Pleynet 1986, p. 71, as Collage;
Mattison 1987, p. 80, illus. p. 84 (fig. 24,
as Untitled); Gilbert 1998, pp. 38–39,
93–94, illus. p. 518 (fig. 3).
comments
Motherwell referred to this as his first
collage, one of two works in the medium
that he created on the same day early
in 1943 (see also Untitled, c2). Both of
these collages were done in Jackson
Pollock’s studio, following Peggy
Guggenheim’s invitation to the two
artists to create works for an exhibition
of collages by several artists she was
planning for April at her New York gallery, Art of This Century. We do not
know, however, whether either of
Motherwell’s first two collages was
actually exhibited there, as no checklist
or installation photographs survive.
The colored papers used in these
first two collages may have been
brought back from Motherwell’s 1941
trip to Mexico, and the glass button
was given to him by Jackson Pollock
(Arnason 1966, p. 23).
The title Pierrot’s Hat was given to
this collage considerably later; it was
not published with that title until 1982.
The title contains a compounded pun:
Pierrot is a stock French theatrical
figure who wears a distinctive conical
hat; and Pierrot is also an affectionate,
diminutive form of Pierre, perhaps a
reference to the French architect Pierre
Chareau, to whom Motherwell gave
this collage. The title also refers to
Piero della Francesca. In a draft of a
letter to E. A. Carmean dated July 13,
1971, Motherwell wrote: “But I also
loved Piero della Francesca—a church
hat of his appears in one of my 2 first
collages” (see “Writings by the Artist,”
in the Bibliography).
Our reproduction of this work
comes from Arnason 1982.
c2
Untitled
1943
Watercolor, gouache, pasted papers,
crayon, and ink on paper
19½ x 15¾ in. (49.5 x 40 cm)
inscriptions
Recto, lower left: [illegible]
motherwell 43
present owner
Galerie Jeanne-Bucher, Paris
provenance
Galerie Jeanne-Bucher, Paris, 1946
group exhibitions
Museu d’Art Contemporani de
Barcelona, 2007, color illus. p. 195.
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon,
France, 2008, cat. no. 56, color illus.
p. 214.
references
Arnason 1966a, p. 23.
comments
Motherwell told H. H. Arnason that he
created two collages in Pollock’s studio,
and that the second one had been lost
