Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 3 - Flipbook - Page 275
c552
c552
c553
Altamira No. 3
Canvas Collage with Music
1976
Acrylic, pasted papers, and crayon on
canvas mounted on board
48 x 36 in. (121.9 x 91.4 cm)
1976/ca. 1983/1985–88
Acrylic, pasted canvas, and pasted
paper on canvas mounted on board
48 x 24 in. (121.9 x 61 cm)
inscriptions
Recto, upper left: Motherwell
24 Jan 76
inscriptions
Recto, lower left: RM 76
artist’s studio number
c76-2667
present owner
Dedalus Foundation
provenance
Dedalus Foundation, 1991
solo exhibitions
Dart Gallery, Chicago, 1976, cat. no. 6.
group exhibitions
Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de
Caracas at Sala Cadafe, Venezuela,
1981, color illus. n.p.
comments
See also Altamira No. 1 and Altamira
No. 2 (c530 and c531).
Verso: “canvas collage, with music”
February 1976 Robert Motherwell
artist’s studio number
c76-973
present owner
Denver Art Museum Collection. For a
full list of donors, see the entry for p22.
provenance
Dedalus Foundation, 1991; Denver Art
Museum, 1994
solo exhibitions
Montclair Art Museum, N.J.,
November 1989.
Denver Art Museum, 1995, illus. n.p.
references
Arnason 1977b, illus. n.p. (pl. 267, in
early state); Glenn 1984, color illus.
c553
p. 91 (in studio, in early state); On &
Off the Wall 1995, p. 12, color illus.
p. 12; Tieken 2000, illus. n.p.; Galleria
d’Arte il Gabbiano exh. cat. 2006, illus.
p. 26 (in studio).
comments
An early version of this collage was
made in 1976 and reproduced in
Arnason 1977b. It contained a fragment
of sheet music and a piece of light
blue canvas pasted on a ground composed of two vertical sheets of canvas
mounted to board and painted in
ochre. The work was consigned in that
form to Knoedler & Company from
December 1981 to November 1982.
Motherwell subsequently painted the
light blue canvas collage element near
the center bright yellow (Sloman
photo no. 1303). He then consigned
the work to Knoedler again, from
November 1983 to November 1985.
Sometime after the work was returned
to him, Motherwell made additional
revisions, painting over the sheet music
in red and yellow and repainting the
yellow piece of torn canvas in black.
The work was photographed in its final
form in October 1988.
The painted-over sheet music
contains part of the score from a
lithographic version of Schoenberg’s
Chamber Symphony no. 1 for 15 solo
instruments, op. 9, combined with part
of Stravinsky’s Le sacre du printemps.
co lla ges
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