Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 3 - Flipbook - Page 18
c5
solo exhibitions
Art of This Century, New York,
October 1944, cat. no. 10.
group exhibitions
Cincinnati Art Museum, 1944
(traveling), cat. no. 63.
Montgomery Art Gallery, Pomona
College, Claremont, Calif., 1977
(traveling), cat. no. 52, color illus.
p. 121.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,
New York, March 1987 (traveling),
cat. no. 32, illus. p. 58.
comments
The collage element at the upper
right-hand corner of this work is wood
veneer; this is one of eight collages, all
done between 1943 and 1945, in which
Motherwell used such veneer.
This collage and Figure with Blots
(c5) both contain strong automatist
elements and forms reminiscent of
Matta’s work of the same period. This
collage probably dates from early 1943,
when Motherwell first began to work
in the medium. If this and other larger
collages done at this time are not
6
collages
usually listed as being among his early
collages, it is largely because they
remained in private collections; some
of the other early collages, such as Joy
of Living (c3), Personage (Autoportrait)
(c8), and Pancho Villa, Dead and Alive
(c7), entered public collections early
and were therefore more widely visible.
c5
Figure with Blots
1943
Oil, pasted papers, crayon, and ink
on paper
45½ x 38 in. (115.6 x 96.5 cm)
inscriptions
Recto, lower right: Robert Motherwell
1943
artist’s studio number
c43present owner
Audrey and David Mirvish, Toronto
provenance
Livingston and Virginia Gearhart,
ca. 1943; Livingston Gearhart, 1953;
Audrey and David Mirvish, Toronto,
before 1983
solo exhibitions
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo,
1983 (traveling), cat. no. 4, color illus.
p. 55; not shown in Los Angeles and
Washington, D.C.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,
New York, 1984, cat. no. 10.
group exhibitions
Fort Worth Art Museum, March 1985,
cat. no. 14, color frontispiece, color
illus. p. 49.
Newport Harbor Art Museum,
Newport Beach, Calif., 1986 (traveling),
cat. no. 78, color illus. p. 131.
Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen’s
University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada,
1993, cover color illus.
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina
Sofía, Madrid, 1999 (traveling), color
illus. p. 179.
National Academy Museum, New York,
2005 (traveling), color illus. n.p.
(pl. 87).
Haunch of Venison New York, 2008,
cat. no. 26, color illus. p. 71.
references
Drohojowska 1987, illus. p. 29; Polcari
1991, p. 306, illus. p. 306 (fig. 242);
Smith 2008, color illus. sec. E, p. 27.
comments
The pale pink and yellow papers in
this collage, which have faded dramatically, are probably the same as those
