Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 3 - Flipbook - Page 348
c726
c726
The Wellfleet Whale: From
Port-of-Spain to Baffin Bay
1985
Acrylic, pasted papers, and charcoal on
canvas mounted on board
36 x 24 in. (91.4 x 61 cm)
inscriptions
Recto, lower right, incised: RM
Verso: the whale: from port-ofspain to baffin bay R. Motherwell
artist’s studio number
c85-3103
present owner
Collection of Talia Goldberg
provenance
Talia Goldberg, 1987
336
collages
solo exhibitions
Knoedler & Company, New York,
April 1986, cat. no. 1.
group exhibitions
Long Point Gallery, Provincetown,
Mass., July 1985.
references
Samuelson 1985a, illus. (installation
view); Samuelson 1985b, illus. p. 3; as
From the Port-of-Spain to Baffin Bay.
c727
Kunitz and his wife, the artist Elise
Asher, were close friends of Motherwell’s
in Provincetown. Although the work is
signed “The Whale: From Port-ofSpain to Baffin Bay,” it has always been
shown with Wellfleet in its title.
This work was first shown at the
Long Point Gallery in an exhibition
called Tribute to Stanley Kunitz.
c727
Untitled
1985/1989
Acrylic, pasted papers, and charcoal on
canvas mounted on board
36 x 24 in. (91.4 x 61 cm)
inscriptions
Recto, upper right, incised [painted
over]: [RM]
Recto, lower right, incised: RM
comments
The collage element at the upper center
of this work is a fragment of a 1984
print, Mexican Night II (Engberg and
Banach 2003, no. 348). This collage
takes its title from lines in “The
Wellfleet Whale,” a 1983 poem by
Stanley Kunitz (1905–2006) addressed
to a whale beached in Provincetown:
“You ranged the North Atlantic track /
from Port-of-Spain to Baffin Bay.”
artist’s studio number
c85-3107
present owner
Private collection
provenance
Dedalus Foundation, 1991; private
collection, 2006
