Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 3 - Flipbook - Page 33
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personnel, which were censored, sent to
the United States on microfilm, and
printed out in a smaller format before
being forwarded to their recipients.
This term already had literary currency; it had been used in 1944 as the
title of Karl Shapiro’s Pulitzer Prize–
winning book of poems. The first
owner of this collage noted that the
“title was changed after the war” by
Motherwell (verso of color photograph,
Dedalus Foundation Archives). The
title View from a High Tower first
appeared in William Seitz’s 1955 dissertation, in which the new title was used
in conjunction with a photograph of the
early state.
c18
c19
Untitled
In Beige with Sand
Ca. 1945
Pasted papers on paperboard
30 x 22 in. (76.2 x 55.9 cm)
Alternative Title: Abstraction with
Scallops
1945
Oil, pasted wood veneer, and sand
on paperboard
44⅞ x 35 in. (114 x 88.9 cm)
inscriptions
Unknown
present owner
Unknown (said to have been destroyed,
date unknown)
inscriptions
Recto, upper right [painted over]:
[Robert Motherwell 45]
provenance
The artist
Recto, lower right: R. Motherwell 45
references
Mattison 1985b, illus. n.p. (fig. 131).
artist’s studio number
c45-5142
comments
This work, in which the lighter-colored
pasted papers are placed on a black
paperboard ground, is known only from
an early black-and-white photograph
(Juley photo no. 22; j00004819). We do
not know whether this work still exists
in the form illustrated here.
present owner
The Saint Louis Art Museum. Gift of
Joseph Pulitzer Jr.
provenance
Samuel M. Kootz Gallery, 1946;
Museum of Modern Art, New York,
1946; Samuel M. Kootz Gallery,
ca. 1949; Joseph Pulitzer Jr., 1951;
Saint Louis Art Museum, 1955
solo exhibitions
Samuel M. Kootz Gallery, New York,
January 1946, cat. no. 10, as Abstraction
with Scallops.
Samuel M. Kootz Gallery, New York,
October 1949.
Washington University Gallery of Art,
Saint Louis, 1995, cat. no. 1.
group exhibitions
Museum of Modern Art, New York,
February 1946.
Museum of Modern Art, New York,
September 1946 (traveling), cat. no. 63.
Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas,
Venezuela, 1948, as Composición en
beige, con arena (Composition in beige,
with sand).
City Art Museum of Saint Louis, 1952,
cat. no. 66, illus. p. 19.
Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University,
Cambridge, Mass., 1957, cat. no. 124,
illus. p. 238 (pl. 88).
City Art Museum of Saint Louis, 1968,
cat. no. 53.
Steinberg Hall, Washington University
Gallery of Art, Saint Louis, 1975,
cat. no. 52.
references
Jewell 1946c, sec. 1, p. 21; Barr 1948,
p. 316; Mattison 1985b, illus. n.p.
co lla ges
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