Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 3 - Flipbook - Page 472
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Two Figures with Green Stripe
Summertime in Italy No. 3
1960–64
Oil on paperboard
26½ x 39¾ in. (67.3 x 101 cm)
inscriptions
Recto, upper right: RM
Alternative Titles: Summertime in
Italy II; Italian Summer No. 3
1960
Oil on paperboard
40¾ x 26½ in. (103.5 x 67.3 cm)
present owner
Dr. and Mrs. M. Wallace Friedman
inscriptions
Recto, upper right, incised: RM 60
provenance
Dr. and Mrs. M. Wallace Friedman,
1967
Verso (on top horizontal strainer):
italian summer, no. 3
solo exhibitions
Museum of Modern Art, New York,
Robert Motherwell:Works on Paper,
September 1965 (circulating).
comments
The composition of this work was set in
1960, the year Motherwell also painted
a related large-scale painting, Two
Figures with Cerulean Blue Stripe (p208).
He revised this smaller work in 1964,
most likely by adding the green paint.
Verso (on backing board): “summertime
in italy, no. 3” Robert Motherwell
1960
present owner
Collection of Joann and Gifford
Phillips
provenance
Joann and Gifford Phillips, 1962
solo exhibitions
Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, April
1961 (not in catalogue).
Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.,
1965, cat. no. 14.
460
paintings on p a p e r an d p a p e r b o a r d
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Museum of Modern Art, New York,
Robert Motherwell:Works on Paper,
September 1965 (circulating); shown in
San Francisco only.
Otis Art Institute, Los Angeles, 1974,
cat. no. 19, color illus. n.p., as
Summertime In Italy II.
group exhibitions
UCLA Art Galleries, Los Angeles,
1962, cat. no. 75, as Summertime in
Italy.
Art Gallery, University of California
at Riverside, 1973, erroneously as
Summertime in Italy II.
comments
This work was probably painted in
Alassio, on the Ligurian coast, during
the summer of 1960. It was shown in
Motherwell’s solo exhibition at the
Sidney Janis Gallery in April 1961, as
per an installation photograph of that
show (Sidney Janis Gallery Archives),
even though it was not included in the
catalogue. It was sold with the title
Summertime in Italy II in 1962, but was
exhibited from 1965 to 1967 as
Summertime in Italy No. 3, in conformity with the title inscribed on the
verso by Motherwell. Thus two works
in this series were given the number 3,
this one and a 1960 collage (c122); but
there is no number 2. The alternative
title inscribed on the verso, “italian
summer, no. 3,” suggests that
Motherwell may at one time have
intended to call the series as a whole
the Italian Summer series (see also
Italian Summer, p253).
For more on the Summertime in
Italy series, see Summertime in Italy
No. 1 (c121).
