Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 3 - Flipbook - Page 32
c18
group exhibitions
Museum of Modern Art, New York,
September 1946 (traveling), cat. no. 60,
as V-Letter; not shown in Bloomington.
Robert Elkon Gallery, New York, 1972,
cat. no. 30.
Andrew Crispo Gallery, New York,
1977, cat. no. 116, illus. n.p.
Bruce Museum, Greenwich, Conn.,
1997.
Bruce Museum of Arts and Science,
Greenwich, Conn., 2000, cat. no. 35,
color illus. p. 73 (fig. 54).
references
Seitz 1955, p. 137, illus. n.p. (fig. 147,
in early state); Motherwell in Museum
of Fine Arts, Houston, exh. cat. 1972,
p. 51; Arnason 1977b, p. 22, color illus.
n.p. (pl. 67); Musée d’Art Moderne
de la Ville de Paris exh. cat. 1977, illus.
n.p.; Pleynet 1977, pp. 190–94;
[Pleynet] 1981, pp. 20–21; Arnason
1982, p. 22, color illus. p. 107 (pl. 117);
Seitz 1983, pp. 51, 88, illus. n.p.
(fig. 159), referred to in text and in
illus. erroneously as View from a Tower;
Mattison 1985b, pp. 132–36, 171–72,
20
collages
illus. n.p. (fig. 100, in early state);
Pleynet 1986, pp. 71–74, 76–77, 79;
Mattison 1987, pp. 111–13, 144, illus.
p. 117 (fig. 41); Pleynet 1989b,
pp. 24–25, 29, 32, color illus. p. 72;
Flam 1991, color illus. n.p. (pl. 7);
Fisher 1992, p. 158; Zimmer 1997,
sec. 13, p. 16; Chalumeau 1998, back
cover color illus., color illus. p. 16
(pl. 8); Gilbert 1998, pp. 289, 445–46,
448, illus. p. 551 (fig. 36); Sprengel
Museum exh. cat. 2000, illus. p. 284;
Gilbert 2004b, pp. 321–22, illus. p. 321
(fig. 4); Taylor 2004, p. 105, color illus.
p. 106 (pl. 105); Noguchi Museum exh.
cat. 2005, color illus. p. 124 (fig. 73),
illus. p. 125 (fig. 74, in early state, as
V-Letter); Haxall 2009, pp. 70, 81.
comments
Among the varied collage elements in
this work is a fragment cut from a military training map from Fort Benning,
in which the French names of battles
from World War I are overlaid onto the
geography of the Georgia countryside
(fragments from the same map appear
in other early collages; see c3 and c12).
A painted collage element, similar to
that in Viva (c33), includes part of
the word vive or viva in combination
with the word la. Taken together, these
suggest the phrase “Vive la France.”
Several fragmentary letters at the bottom of the paper are not legible but
could suggest the syllable reg, a possible
reference to the “Himno el Quinto
Regimiento” (Hymn of the Fifth
Regiment), a Spanish Civil War song.
This collage was begun in 1944
as a composition with dimensions of
approximately 40 x 30 inches. A photograph of the work in that state, with
simpler forms, without the painted
black lines, and with an inscription
at the upper left reading “Motherwell
1944,” is reproduced in Seitz 1983,
fig. 159 (see also Juley photo no. 2;
j0004800). Later that year, or more
likely in 1945, Motherwell revised the
composition of this collage extensively.
He cut ten inches off the top, giving
the work its present square format; he
painted over part of the piece of wood
veneer, which had dominated the early
state of the composition; he added a
number of small collage elements;
and he painted in the sweeping black
linear forms. He then re-signed the
work in the lower right corner, since the
original signature had been located in
the top part of the work, which had
been cut off.
The 1945 date for this reworking is
suggested by the fact that in early 1945
Motherwell considered using a photograph of the early state of the collage as
an illustration in Wolfgang Paalen’s
Form and Sense, which he was editing
for the Problems in Contemporary Art
series, and which was published that
spring (George Wittenborn Papers,
Museum of Modern Art Archives, New
York). In fact, the addition of the collage fragment with overlapping graffitilike texts suggests that this work may
not have been given its definitive form
until 1946, when Motherwell was developing his idea of the Walls of Europe
series (see the Comments for A Wall in
Italy, c32).
This work was first shown in 1946,
in its final state but under its original
title, V-Letter, which referred to letters
sent from abroad by U.S. military
