Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 3 - Flipbook - Page 478
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spray with such physical force that the
strong rag paper split, and it was only
when I found rag paper laminated
with glue in five layers that the surface
could take the full force of my shoulder,
arm, hand, and brush without splitting.
One might say that the true way to ‘imitate’ nature is to employ its own processes” (Motherwell in Arnason 1982,
p. 147).
This work, the first in the Beside
the Sea series, was numbered in pencil
at the lower right (as were many other
works in the series). There are some
gaps in the numbering of the works in
the 1962 series: the collage U.S. Art
New York N.Y. (c132) originated as
number 7 in the series; number 9
became Number 70 (c133); Beside the
Sea, with Black and White (c135) was
number 16; number 35 in the series
became the collage Beside the Sea, with
Collage (c134); no work is known to
have been assigned the number 29.
466
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Beside the Sea No. 2
1962/ca. 1965
Oil on paper
29 x 23 in. (73.7 x 58.4 cm)
inscriptions
Recto, lower center: Motherwell
Recto, lower right: 1962
Verso not seen [“signed, titled and
dated 1962 on the backing board,” per
Sotheby’s 2003]
artist’s studio number
p62-546
present owner
Unknown
provenance
Base Gallery, Tokyo, 1990; private collection, 1992; [Sotheby’s, New York,
May 14, 2003, lot 153, illus.]; unknown
owner, 2003
solo exhibitions
Smith College Museum of Art,
Northampton, Mass., 1963, cat. no. 21
(shown in early state).
paintings on pa p e r an d p a p e r b o a r d
New Gallery, Charles Hayden Memorial
Library, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Cambridge, 1963 (shown
in early state).
Museum of Modern Art, New York,
Robert Motherwell:Works on Paper,
September 1965 (circulating) (not in
catalogue).
Museum of Modern Art, New York,
1967 (circulating), Buenos Aires, cat.
no. 20; Caracas, cat. no. 75; Bogotá,
cat. no. 75; Mexico City, cat. no. 20; as
Al borde del mar (Beside the Sea).
William Benton Museum of Art,
University of Connecticut, Storrs, 1979,
cat. no. 16 (brochure); cat. no. 18 (catalogue), illus. p. 47 (in exhibition), illus.
p. 48 (in exhibition), illus. p. 85.
Janie C. Lee Gallery, Houston, 1979,
cat. no. 29, illus. n.p.; illus. n.p. (in
exhibition).
group exhibitions
Reese Palley Gallery, San Francisco,
1968.
references
Sandler 1963b, illus. p. 117 (in early
state); Hobbs 1976b, illus. p. 37; Arnason
1977b, illus. n.p. (pl. 136); Arnason 1982,
illus. p. 147 (pl. 172); Arnason 1986,
color illus. p. 403 (pl. 191); Enright
1989, illus. p. 11; Pleynet 1989b, color
illus. p. 109; Scarpetta 1989–90, color
illus. p. 117; Flam 1991, color illus. n.p.
(pl. 59); Polcari 1991, p. 307, illus.
p. 307 (fig. 243); Franzke 1994, color
illus. p. 8 (fig. 8); Caws 1996b, illus.
p. 150; Chalumeau 1998, color illus.
p. 42 (pl. 39); Caws 2003, p. 131,
illus. p. 133 (ill. 88).
comments
An early version of this work, painted
in 1962, was exhibited twice in 1963.
Motherwell added the ochre paint in
the lower part of the composition
sometime before the work was exhibited again in September 1965.
