Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 3 - Flipbook - Page 39
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Untitled
The Cat of “The Weasel,
Little Rabbit, and Cat”
1945
Pasted paper and ink on paper
8¾ x 3⅝ in. (22.2 x 9.2 cm)
inscriptions
Recto, lower right: Robert Motherwell
III 45
present owner
Unknown
provenance
Paul Peters and Ivan von Auw Jr., 1945;
unknown owner, after 1964
comments
In 1945 Motherwell gave this collage as
a birthday gift to the editor and playwright Paul Peters, who was one of his
East Hampton neighbors. The work is
composed of a small ink drawing that
Motherwell cut out and pasted down on
a ground of the same kind of patterned
German wrapping paper that he had
been using in his collages since 1943.
Our reproduction of this work
comes from a color photograph sent to
Motherwell in 1964.
1945
Pasted papers and ink on paper
14¼ x 7⅛ in. (36.2 x 18.1 cm)
inscriptions
Recto, lower center: The Cat—of
“The Weasel, Little Rabbit, + Cat”
present owner
The Chinese Porcelain Company
provenance
Walter Pistole, 1945; Estate of Walter
Pistole, ca. 1994; [Sotheby’s, New York,
June 12, 1997, lot 201, illus.]; Elton
and Penny Yasuna, 1997; [Christie’s
East, New York, February 20, 2001,
lot 42, illus.]; Chinese Porcelain
Company, 2001
group exhibitions
Salvador Dalí Museum, Saint
Petersburg, Fla., 1998 (traveling),
color illus. p. 75 (fig. 47).
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comments
The title of this work refers to one
of the poems in La Fontaine’s Fables.
It is one of nine drawings and collages
related to La Fontaine that were
originally owned by Walter Pistole,
an editor at Reynal & Hitchcock who
chose Motherwell to illustrate a
planned translation of the Fables by the
poet Marianne Moore (1887–1972).
Motherwell’s role in the project
came to a halt when Moore made it
known that she preferred to have the
French and English texts presented on
facing pages, which would preclude
illustrations. The project was canceled
after the death of Curtice Hitchcock,
the head of the publishing house, in
May 1946. Moore’s translation of the
complete Fables was eventually published by Viking Press in 1954.
See also the related collages
c28–c31.
references
Geissler 2005, cover color illus.
co lla ges
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