Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 3 - Flipbook - Page 158
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Open, Bolton Landing
1969
Pasted papers on paper
25⅛ x 38⅝ in. (63.8 x 98.1 cm)
in Bolton Landing, in upstate New
York, near Lake George.
This is the only Open image made
entirely of paper, with no paint or
drawing.
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Untitled
1969
Pasted papers on Upson board
44½ x 29 in. (113 x 73.7 cm)
inscriptions
Recto, lower left: RM 69
inscriptions
Recto, lower left: R. Motherwell
artist’s studio number
c69-609
artist’s studio number
c64-3800
present owner
Dedalus Foundation
present owner
Dedalus Foundation
provenance
Dedalus Foundation, 1991
provenance
Dedalus Foundation, 1991
solo exhibitions
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,
November 1972 (traveling), cat. no. 37,
illus. p. 85.
comments
Previously dated 1964 (Engberg and
Banach 2003, p. 102), this collage was
done in Provincetown during the summer of 1969 and used as a maquette
for the Juilliard School poster (Engberg
and Banach 2003, no. 64), which was
published that October. The small piece
of sheet music at the center of the composition comes from Beethoven’s String
Quartet no. 16 in F major, op. 135,
in which the composer famously wrote
“Muss es sein? Es muss sein! Es muss
comments
This collage was a study for Black 4 in
Motherwell’s livre d’artiste, A la pintura
(Engberg and Banach 2003, no. 115).
It also served as a model for Open
No. 121: Bolton Landing Elegy, 1969
(p504). The sculptor David Smith lived
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collages
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sein!” (Must it be? It must be! It must
be!) in the manuscript of the last movement. In a 1969 interview Motherwell
told Arthur Cohen that he had wanted
to use music by the American composer Charles Ives for this poster, but
that the Juilliard School suggested the
Beethoven score instead (see “Writings
by the Artist,” in the Bibliography).
This is the first collage in which
Motherwell used sheet music.
