Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 3 - Flipbook - Page 420
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w9
Dirge
Alternative Title: Black and Red
1948–49
Oil, casein, and graphite on paperboard
20 x 16 in. (50.8 x 40.6 cm)
inscriptions
Recto, upper right, incised:
Motherwell 48
provenance
Private collection; private collection,
1983; Irving C. Deal, 1984; private collection, 1988; private collection, 1988
solo exhibitions
Samuel M. Kootz Gallery, New York,
November 1950, sec. C, cat. no. 4, as
Black and Red.
Recto, lower right: Motherwell 48
group exhibitions
Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, New York,
1983.
Verso [partially covered by remounting]:
dirge [illegible]
Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, New York,
1984.
Verso [circled ]: Robert Motherwell
1949 [1533]
references
Klein 1984, pp. 37–38.
artist’s studio number
p48-5161
comments
In this work, Motherwell utilizes a compositional structure first employed in
his 1945–47 painting In Yellow and Black
(p46). A similar composition also
present owner
Private collection
408
paintings on p a p e r an d p a p e r b o a r d
appears in a 1946–47 collage, Montauk
Montage (c41), and in a 1948 ink drawing called Sailor’s Cemetery (see fig. 43
in volume 1).
Both the looming black forms in
this picture and the title Dirge suggest
some of the ideas and concerns that
Motherwell would more fully explore
in his Elegy to the Spanish Republic
series, the first works of which were
painted in 1948–49. In fact, this work
was done around the same time
as the first Elegy painting, At Five in
the Afternoon (w10); in both works
Motherwell originally painted the dominant forms a pale blue before painting
them over in black.
The circled “1533” inscribed on the
verso in the artist’s hand refers to the
Samuel M. Kootz Gallery inventory
number for this work.
w10
At Five in the Afternoon
Alternative Titles: Five in the Afternoon;
At Five in the Afternoon. Sketch
1948–49
Casein and graphite on paperboard
15 x 20 in. (38.1 x 50.8 cm)
inscriptions
Recto, lower right: Motherwell 49
Verso (on backing board): Robert
Motherwell 1949 “five in the
afternoon” casein
Verso (on label) [revised ]: the [first]
second of the “elegy to the spanish
republic” series 1949 Robert
Motherwell
artist’s studio number
p49-5064
present owner
Helen Frankenthaler
