Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 3 - Flipbook - Page 312
c639
c639
Votre Miroir
1979
Acrylic, pasted papers, and crayon on
canvas mounted on board
25 x 10 in. (63.5 x 25.4 cm)
inscriptions
Recto, lower left: RM 79
artist’s studio number
c79-2370
present owner
Unknown
provenance
Private collection, 1981; private
collection, 1981; unknown owner
group exhibitions
Galerie Beyeler, Basel, Switzerland,
1980, cat. no. 60.
comments
The title of this work is taken from a
line in “Il se peut” (It May Be), a
poem by Max Jacob, published in Le
Laboratoire Central (1921), which contains the lines “Vous avez cru voir un
ange / Et c’était votre miroir” (You
300
collages
c640
believed you saw an angel / And it was
your mirror). The same collage element
with Motherwell’s writing contains a
second line of poetry: “me porté como
quien soy” (I behaved as I am), which
is from Lorca’s “La casada infiel”
(The Unfaithful Wife), first published
in his Primer Romancero Gitano (First
Gypsy Ballads), translated by Will
Kirkland and Christopher Maurer in
Federico García Lorca: Collected Poems,
ed. Christopher Maurer, rev. ed. (New
York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002),
p. 563. Motherwell had used other
lines from this same Lorca poem in an
untitled early painting (p165).
The newspaper page from the
Times (London) is actually a facsimile
from a fish and chips bag that
Motherwell used in other collages; see
also the Comments for c601, c604,
c620, c622, and c644.
c641
c640
c641
Country Collage
Untitled
1979
Oil and pasted papers on Masonite
24 x 20 in. (61 x 50.8 cm)
1980
Oil and pasted paper on paper
23 x 18 in. (58.4 x 45.7 cm)
inscriptions
Recto, upper right: RM 10 Nov 79
inscriptions
Recto, upper right: RM 80
artist’s studio number
c79-2416
artist’s studio number
p80-3673
present owner
Collection of Mark and Fiona
Lochtenberg
present owner
Collection of Mark and Fiona
Lochtenberg
provenance
Dedalus Foundation, 1991; Mark and
Fiona Lochtenberg, 2008
provenance
Dedalus Foundation, 1991; Mark and
Fiona Lochtenberg, 2008
references
Arnason 1982, color illus. p. 222 (pl. 312);
Pleynet 1989b, color illus. p. 122.
solo exhibitions
Annandale Galleries, Sydney, Australia,
2005.
comments
The calligraphic imagery in this collage
is painted on paper that contains a
bronze-colored aquatint ground similar
to those in the 1980 aquatints Primal
Sign II, III, and IV (Engberg and
Banach 2003, nos. 268–70) and Black
Gesture on Copper Ground (Engberg and
Banach 2003, no. 276).
comments
The calligraphic imagery in this collage
is painted over paper that contains a
colored aquatint ground similar to
those in the 1980 aquatints Primal Sign
II, III, and IV (Engberg and Banach
2003, nos. 268–70) and Black Gesture
on Copper Ground (Engberg and Banach
2003, no. 276).
