Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 3 - Flipbook - Page 48
c42
The Poet
Alternative Titles: Absurd Personage with
Orange; Orange Personage; Personage
with Orange; Orange Collage
1947
Oil and pasted papers on board
55⅜ x 39⅛ in. (140.7 x 99.4 cm)
inscriptions
Recto, upper left, incised: RM 47
Verso: «absurd personage with orange»
Feb 1947 Robert Motherwell
artist’s studio number
c47-5021
present owner
Collections of Kate and Christopher
Rothko
provenance
Samuel M. Kootz Gallery, 1947;
private collection, 1953; Robert
Motherwell, ca. 1957; Mark Rothko,
New York, ca. 1958; Kate and
Christopher Rothko, 1970
solo exhibitions
Samuel M. Kootz Gallery, New York,
April 1947, cat. no. 6, as Absurd
Personage with Orange.
c41
Nassau County Museum of Fine Art,
Roslyn Harbor, N.Y., 1982, color illus.
p. 46, as Montauk.
Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn
Harbor, N.Y., 1996, color illus. p. 72, as
Montauk.
Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton,
N.Y., 1996, as Montauk.
Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn
Harbor, N.Y., 2000, color illus. p. 37, as
Montauk.
Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn
Harbor, N.Y., 2007, color illus. p. 51
(upside down), as Montauk.
Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn
Harbor, N.Y., 2009, as Montauk.
references
Mattison 1985b, illus. n.p. (fig. 205),
as Montauk; Gordon 2001, p. 50, as
Montauk.
comments
An early state of this work is visible in
Francis Lee’s 1946 photograph of
Motherwell in the studio the artist had
set up in a rented East Hampton cottage. Montauk Montage is similar in
36
collages
compositional structure to several other
works of the period, such as In Yellow
and Black (p46), Dirge (w9), In Ashes
with Collage (c53), and a 1948 ink drawing called Sailor’s Cemetery (see fig. 43
in volume 1).
This work was shown as Montauk
Montage in 1948 and 1952, but the title
was afterward erroneously shortened to
Montauk; we have restored Motherwell’s
original title.
Samuel M. Kootz Gallery, New York,
October 1949, as Orange Personage.
New Gallery, Bennington College, Vt.,
1959, cat. no. 10, as Orange Collage.
Museum of Modern Art, New York,
Robert Motherwell, September 1965
(traveling), New York, cat. no. 17, illus.
p. 17; Amsterdam, cat. no. 16, illus.
n.p.; Essen, cat. no. 16; Turin, cat.
no. 16, illus. p. 75 (pl. 15).
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,
New York, 1984, cat. no. 13.
group exhibitions
Arts Club of Chicago, 1953 (traveling),
cat. no. 15, as Personage with Orange.
Whitney Museum of American Art,
New York, 1955 (traveling); shown in
New York only.
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1957,
cat. no. 96, as Personage with Orange.
University of Utah, Salt Lake City,
1958, illus. n.p., as Personage With
Orange.
Museum of Modern Art, New York,
March 1968 (traveling); shown in New
York only.
references
McB[ride] 1947, p. 9; Leepa 1949, illus.
n.p. (fig. 84), as Person With Orange;
Motherwell in Leepa 1949, p. 194, as
Person With Orange; S[harp] 1949, p. 22,
as Orange Personage; Seeley 1950, illus.
p. 164, as Person with Orange; Hess
1951, p. 132, color illus. p. 95 (pl. g);
Seitz 1955, pp. 137, 190–92, illus. n.p.
(fig. 160a), illus. n.p. (fig. 160b);
Celentano 1957, p. 36; Sloane 1961,
illus. p. 423 (fig. 3); Nordland 1962b,
p. 50; McCoubrey 1963, pp. 121–22,
illus. p. 111 (pl. 67); Ashton 1964b,
illus. p. 102; Carver 1965, p. 6; Hudson
1965, sec. G, p. 7; O’Hara 1965b,
p. 264; Arnason 1966a, p. 35, illus. p. 30
(fig. 17); Arnason 1966b, pp. 19, 31, 32;
[Brett] 1966, p. 16; Ashbery 1968b,
color illus. p. 42; Wescher 1968,
p. 301; Boehs 1971, p. 133; Museum of
Fine Arts, Houston, exh. cat. 1972,
illus. p. 57 (cat. no. 9); Arnason 1977b,
pp. 25, 30, 41, illus. n.p. (pl. 68);
Motherwell in Arnason 1977b, n.p.;
Arnason 1982, pp. 25, 30, 41, color
illus. p. 109 (pl. 119); Motherwell in
Arnason 1982, p. 108; Seitz 1983,
pp. 51, 71, color illus. n.p. (fig. 172);
Mattison 1985b, pp. 176, 196–200, 205,
illus. n.p. (fig. 161); Paul 1986, p. 69;
Mattison 1987, pp. 146, 166, 167–68,
175, 176, illus. p. 169 (fig. 64); Flam
1991, color illus. n.p. (pl. 14); Gooch
1993, p. 446; Anfam 1998, p. 317;
Chalumeau 1998, p. 6, color illus. p. 10
(pl. 2); Gilbert 1998, pp. 264, 267–70,
274, 278–80, illus. p. 550 (fig. 35);
Gordon 2001, p. 50.
comments
This work was the only collage in a
group of fairly large painted compositions with similar imagery that
Motherwell created in 1946 and 1947
(see p36 and p56–p58). In 1949,
Motherwell described the creation of
this collage at length: “[The work] was
done in a boarding house on the southeastern coast of Long Island . . . [on]
late afternoons and nights during a
week of snow and ice early in 1947. . . .
The orange background, felt all over,
asked for an image. As though ice suddenly said, yes I like my material but
I want a shape. The figuration arose
spontaneously, surprising me, though I
had used the shape previously.” He also
gave Allen Leepa information about
specific aspects of the work, describing
the papers as “butcher, wrapping, and
Japanese rice,” and the medium in general as “flimsy papers painted with oils.”
The process, he said, was “what Yeats
called, in describing a class of artists,
‘simplification through intensity,’ ” and
