Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 3 - Flipbook - Page 469
w107
w107
Elegy Study
Alternative Title: Untitled (Elegy Study)
1960
Oil on paper
23 x 29 in. (58.4 x 73.7 cm)
inscriptions
Recto, upper right, incised: RM
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 1996,
cat. no. 22.
Museo Dolores Olmedo Patiño,
Mexico City, 2008, color illus. p. 43.
Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art,
Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill.,
2009, cat. no. 1.
Recto, lower right: /53
group exhibitions
Knoedler & Company, New York, 1983
(not on checklist).
artist’s studio number
d53-2539
Phoenix Gallery, New York, 1985.
present owner
Collection Walker Art Center,
Minneapolis. Gift of Margaret and
Angus Wurtele and the Dedalus
Foundation, 1995
provenance
Dedalus Foundation, 1991; Walker Art
Center, Minneapolis, 1995
solo exhibitions
Knoedler & Company, New York,
February 1981, cat. no. 26, as Untitled
(Elegy Study).
Knoedler & Company, New York, 1994,
cat. no. 6.
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 2005.
comments
The inscription “/53” at the lower right
of this work appears to have been an
erroneous guess at its date made at a
much later time, probably in the early
1980s when it was assigned a studio
number reflecting a 1953 date, just
prior to its first public exhibition in
February 1981. An early version of this
work, however, is seen pinned to the
wall with other works in progress in a
photograph of Motherwell’s studio
taken by Peter A. Juley & Son around
w108
February 1960 (unnumbered Juley
photograph; j0005028), and the style of
the composition is consistent with the
artist’s works from that period.
w108
Elegy to the Spanish Republic
No. 44
1960
Casein on paper
23 x 29 in. (58.4 x 73.7 cm)
inscriptions
Recto, lower right: 60 R Motherwell
present owner
Private collection
provenance
Private collection, 1965; private collection, 2005
references
Arnason 1966b, p. 29, illus. p. 22;
Hobbs 1975b, p. 255, illus. n.p. (pl. 37);
Arnason 1977b, p. 46; Arnason 1982,
p. 46.
comments
As evidenced in this work and other
Elegy paintings from this period, the
numbering of the Elegy paintings on
paper was not chronologically sequential. See, for example, the Elegies given
the numbers 40, 45, and 50 (w25,
w109, and w32 respectively).
p a i n tin gs on paper and paperbo ard
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