Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 3 - Flipbook - Page 19
c6
that Motherwell used in Pierrot’s Hat
(c1) and Untitled (c2).
Livingston Gearhart, who acquired
this collage directly from Motherwell,
listed it on his insurance appraisal as
Untitled. The present title appears to
have been given to the work by the artist when it was exhibited for the first
time, in his 1983 retrospective at the
Albright-Knox Art Gallery.
c6
The Flute
1943
Oil and pasted papers on cardboard
35½ x 18 in. (90.2 x 45.7 cm)
inscriptions
Recto, lower right [partially abraded]:
Robert Mothe[rwe]ll 1943
artist’s studio number
c43-5002
present owner
Private collection
provenance
Samuel M. Kootz Gallery, 1946; private
collection, ca. 1948; private collection,
1958
group exhibitions
Samuel M. Kootz Gallery, New York,
December 1946, cat. no. 16.
Whitney Museum of American Art,
New York, March 1947, cat. no. 122.
references
Seitz 1955, p. 136, illus. n.p. (fig. 140);
Seitz 1983, p. 51, illus. n.p. (fig. 152);
Mattison 1985b, pp. 120–21, illus. n.p.
(fig. 71); Caws 2003, illus. p. 45
(ill. 32).
comments
The patterned paper on the right side
of this collage, widely assumed to have
been brought back from Mexico, is in
fact a German wrapping paper that
Motherwell bought five sheets of, with
slightly different patterns, in a New
York art supply store (interview with
Sigmund Koch and Jack Flam, 1986;
also discussed in a November 1989
interview with Jack Flam; see “Writings
by the Artist,” in the Bibliography).
These papers were subsequently used
in a number of other collages during
the 1940s. The pinkish paper at the
upper left center of this work was originally bright magenta, but has faded
(see the Comments for c2).
In a letter to curator Glen
MacLeod dated November 16, 1983,
Motherwell noted that this work was
partly inspired by Wallace Stevens’s
poem “The Man with the Blue Guitar”
(1937), as well as by Mozart’s Die
Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute; k. 620).
The instrument in this collage, he
noted, is “a kind of imaginary instrument . . . but more like a woodwind,
and is dominantly blue.” He had
avoided the image of the guitar because,
he said, “The guitar shape is so deeply
a Cubist icon . . . especially in making a
collage, which is a Cubist invention,
and hence a reference by indirection”
(see Motherwell 1992, p. 270). In a later
letter to MacLeod, dated January 19,
1988, Motherwell wrote, “At one time
I wanted to make a painting called ‘The
Blue Guitar,’ but the shape turned out
to be a wood instrument—a clarinet or
a fife, I do not remember. I have not
seen the picture in years” (see “Writings
by the Artist,” in the Bibliography).
A black-and-white photograph of
this painting from the Sidney Janis
Gallery archives includes a note on the
reverse, not written in Motherwell’s
hand but most likely based on his comments, regarding the collage’s iconography: “Has music stand, metronome,
flute, music, etc.”
co lla ges
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