Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 3 - Flipbook - Page 426
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group exhibitions
Institute of Contemporary Art,
University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, 1965.
Parrish Art Museum, Southampton,
N.Y., 1980 (traveling), cat. no. 33.
Knoedler & Company, New York,
September 1986, cat. no. 4, erroneously
as Pregnant Mother Holding Child.
references
O’Brien 1962, illus. sec. Magazine,
pt. 1, p. 52 (installation view); Arnason
1966b, illus. p. 23; Boston University
Journal 1973, illus. p. 43; Arnason
1977b, p. 49, illus. n.p. (pl. 97, in studio), color illus. n.p. (pl. 98); Motherwell
in Arnason 1977b, n.p.; Pleynet 1977,
p. 197; Tennant 1979, p. 14; Preston
1980, pt. 2, p. 31; Anderson 1981,
p. 230, as Pregnant Woman; [Pleynet]
1981, p. 24; Arnason 1982, p. 49, illus.
p. 49 (pl. 40); Seitz 1983, pp. 23–24, 52,
illus. n.p. (fig. 193); Glenn 1984, color
illus. p. 88 (installation view); Pleynet
1986, p. 83; Pleynet 1989b, pp. 38–39,
44, color illus. p. 36; Flam 1991, p. 9,
414
erroneously as Woman Holding a Child,
color illus. n.p. (pl. 25).
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Spanish Elegy XIV (Palamos)
comments
This work was first exhibited at the
Sidney Janis Gallery in 1957 under the
title The Artist’s Wife Pregnant, Holding
Another Child. It was subsequently
exhibited at Bennington College in
1959 as Pregnant Nude Holding Child,
and thereafter as Pregnant Woman
Holding Child. As the original title
suggests, the work was inspired by
the pregnancy of Motherwell’s wife
Betty with their first daughter Jeannie,
who was born on January 28, 1953.
The other child, referred to in the
earliest title of this work, was Betty’s
daughter by her first husband. In 1953,
Motherwell also painted four canvases
on the theme of the pregnant nude
(see p141–p144).
Goucher College, Baltimore, 1963, cat.
no. 50, illus. p. 35, as Spanish Elegy
XXV-B.
Alternative Title: Spanish Elegy XXV-B
1953
Oil and graphite on paperboard
20 x 30 in. (50.8 x 76.2 cm)
Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, 1964,
cat. no. 25, illus. n.p., as Spanish Elegy
XXV B.
paintings on p a p e r an d p a p e r b o a r d
inscriptions
Recto, lower right: R.M. 53
present owner
Goucher College Art Collection,
Baltimore. Gift of Mrs. Henry Epstein,
1966
provenance
Mrs. Henry Epstein, 1958; Goucher
College Art Collection, Baltimore, 1965
solo exhibitions
Samuel M. Kootz Gallery, New York,
April 1953.
Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, 1992, color
illus. p. 21, as Spanish Elegy XXV B.
group exhibitions
Addison Gallery of American Art,
Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass.,
1954.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art,
1965, cat. no. 65, illus. p. 136, erroneously as Elegy to the Spanish Republic
XXXVB.
B. R. Kornblatt Gallery, Washington,
D.C., 1981, cat. no. 6, illus. n.p., as
Spanish Elegy XXV B.
references
Kozloff 1965a, illus. p. 36, erroneously
as Elegy to the Spanish Republic XXXVB;
Galerie im Erker exh. cat. 1971, illus
p. 11 (in studio); Hobbs 1975b, p. 237.
comments
Spanish Elegy XIV (Palamos) was
the first work to be given a number in
Motherwell’s Elegy to the Spanish
Republic series. The subtitle refers to
Palamos, a town located on the Costa
Brava, in the Catalan province of
Girona. By the late 1950s the original
