Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 3 - Flipbook - Page 327
c677
(Sloman photo no. 507). In 1978
Motherwell reoriented the work 180
degrees and painted most of the ground
pink. He continued to revise the work
during the next couple of years, adding
green and black paint. In 1982 he
made the last major revision, when he
repainted much of the ground blue and
modified the black form at the left.
Some minor revisions were made to the
work in 1985.
Motherwell had written the
Spanish phrase “Esta vida que yo viva”
(This life that I live) on the central
collage element as early as 1977, and he
darkened the inscription in the 1980s.
The phrase is a line from the poem
“Que muero porque no muero”
(I Die Because I Do Not Die) by the
seventeenth-century Mexican poet Sor
Juana Inés de la Cruz (who took the
title of her poem from a celebrated line
by Saint Teresa of Avila). Motherwell
may have been introduced to this
poem by Octavio Paz, who published a
major study of the poet, Sor Juana Inés
de la Cruz; o, Las trampas de la fe, in
1982 (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura
Económica).
c677
Untitled
1982
Acrylic and pasted papers on canvas
mounted on Masonite
72 x 36 in. (182.9 x 91.4 cm)
inscriptions
Recto, upper right: RM Aug 82
artist’s studio number
c82-2698
present owner
Private collection, Lausanne
provenance
Private collection, 1983; private collection, Lausanne, Switzerland, 1985
group exhibitions
Knoedler Zürich, 1983.
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Germany, 1985,
cat. no. 443, color illus. p. 286.
c678
comments
The sheet music in this collage is from
Mozart’s Eine kleine deutsche Kantate
(k. 619).
c678
St. Michel with Yellow Stripe
1982
Acrylic and pasted paper on Masonite
72 x 36 in. (182.9 x 91.4 cm)
inscriptions
Recto, upper right, incised: RM 82
artist’s studio number
c82-2706
present owner
Fondation BNP Paribas (Suisse) SA
provenance
Fondation BNP Paribas (Suisse) SA,
1983
comments
This collage incorporates a fragment of
a 1979 print, St. Michael III (Engberg
and Banach 2003, no. 237).
Helmhaus Zürich, 1987.
Galerie Alice Pauli, Lausanne,
Switzerland, 1991.
Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts,
Lausanne, Switzerland, 1999, cat.
no. 60.
co lla ges
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