Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 3 - Flipbook - Page 261
c524
group exhibitions
Long Point Gallery, Provincetown,
Mass., August 1978, cat. no. 15, as
Untitled.
Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts,
Lausanne, Switzerland, 1999, cat.
no. 58.
black and white cataract, the voices, /
the laughter, the groans, of a confused /
world hurling itself from a height); as
translated by Muriel Rukeyser in
Octavio Paz, Early Poems, 1935–1955
(New York: New Direction, 1963;
this is the edition used by the artist),
pp. 124–25.
c525
c525
Untitled
Alternative Title: {Spanish Envelope}
1975
Acrylic and pasted papers on canvas
board
48 x 36 in. (121.9 x 91.4 cm)
references
Kramer 1977a, color illus. p. 17 (in studio, in progress); Raynor 1979, sec. 23,
p. 14; Catoir 1980, p. 283, illus. p. 285
(fig. 10); Arnason 1982, color illus.
p. 191 (pl. 264, in studio, in progress),
color illus. p. 193 (pl. 266); Drudi 1983,
color illus. n.p.
inscriptions
Recto, upper right: Motherwell
June 75
comments
The title of this collage refers to the
title of a 1952 poem by Octavio Paz,
“¿No hay salida?” (The Endless
Instant), which begins: “Oigo correr
entre bultos adormilados y ceñudos un
inceasante río. / Es la catarata negra y
blanca, las voces, las risas, los gemidos
del / mundo confuso, despeñándose”
(I hear an incessant / river running
between dimly discerned, looming /
forms, drowsy and frowning. / It is the
provenance
Dedalus Foundation, 1991
that bears the image of the Spanish
Romantic poet José de Espronceda
(1808–1842), which also appears in
another collage, The Spanish Poet
(c581).
artist’s studio number
c75-994
present owner
Dedalus Foundation
solo exhibitions
Galerie Lelong, Paris, 2007, as Spanish
Envelope.
comments
The brown mailing wrapper in this
collage is from a package sent to
Motherwell from Spain; it contains
several postage stamps, including one
co lla ges
249
