Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 3 - Flipbook - Page 430
w20
Bird Study
1954
Oil on paper
11½ x 15¾ in. (29.2 x 40 cm)
InscrIptIons
Recto, upper right: RM 54
present owner
Collection of S. Gene Cauley
provenAnce
Paul Kantor Gallery, Beverly Hills,
Calif., ca. 1954; Andrew Crispo
Gallery, Inc.; [Sotheby’s, New York,
February 22, 1986, lot 9, illus.];
unknown owner, 1986; [Sotheby’s
Arcade Auction, New York, October 5,
1988, lot 296A, illus.]; Linda Gottlieb,
1988; [Sotheby’s, New York, February
26, 2007, lot 45, illus.]; Serge Soroko
Gallery, 2007; S. Gene Cauley, 2007
w22
w21
w23
shape and size, he subsequently had
these works mounted on board supports. Since they are signed on the
palette papers rather than on the surrounding supports, these works are
considered paintings rather than collages. (See, by contrast, an untitled
collage that employs a sheet of the same
kind of palette paper, c60.)
Bird imagery recurred with some
frequency in Motherwell’s early work.
He was especially attracted to the vitality and alertness of birds, and to the
idea of “birdness”; see the Comments
for Bird (p76).
comments
This work is one of a number of small
gestural studies of birds that Motherwell
painted on palette paper in 1954 (see
also w21–w23). Because of the fragility
of the palette paper and its irregular
418
w20
paintings on pa p e r an d p a p e r b o a r d
w21
w22
Untitled
Bird
1954
Oil on paper
11½ x 15 in. (29.2 x 38.1 cm)
1954
Oil on paper
11¾ x 15½ in. (29.8 x 39.4 cm)
InscrIptIons
Recto, lower right: RM 54
InscrIptIons
Recto, upper right: RM
ArtIst’s studIo number
p54-25
present owner
Unknown
present owner
Unknown
provenAnce
Natica Waterbury, ca. 1954; [Christie’s,
New York, May 16, 1980, lot 60, illus.];
unknown owner, 1980; [Sotheby’s,
New York, April 1, 1998, lot 158, illus.
(not sold)]; [Sotheby’s Arcade Auction,
New York, October 6, 1998, lot 340,
illus.]; unknown owner, 1998
provenAnce
The artist
solo exhIbItIons
Janie C. Lee Gallery, Houston, 1979,
cat. no. 11, illus. n.p. (in exhibition).
comments
Our reproduction comes from a blackand-white photograph of this work
taken around 1973 (studio inventory
photo no. ph 48-3). We do not know if
the work still exists in the form illustrated here.
Group exhIbItIons
Whitney Museum of American Art,
New York, 1954, cat. no. 162.
references
H[ess] 1954, illus.
comments
Our reproduction comes from an early
black-and-white photograph of this
work (Juley photo no. 50; j0004845).
