Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 3 - Flipbook - Page 50
c43
the “felt content” he described as an
“ecstatic figure.” Motherwell also distinguished this work from Cubist papier
collé by its “automatic, not analytical
drawing,” and discussed the light in
terms of a “reddened and angry sky at
the end of a day” (Motherwell in Leepa
1949, p. 194).
This collage was originally
titled Absurd Personage with Orange
(as inscribed on the verso), and then
Personage with Orange. It did not
acquire its present title, The Poet, until
it was shown at the Whitney Museum
of American Art in 1955. Even after
that, however, the title remained tentative; in 1957 it was consigned to the
Sidney Janis Gallery as Personage with
Orange, and it was exhibited under that
title in 1957 and 1958 in Minneapolis
and Utah. Between the time the
collage was returned from Utah in 1958
and exhibited at Bennington College
in 1959, Motherwell gave it to Mark
Rothko, as The Poet, in exchange for
Rothko’s 1949 painting Untitled (Anfam
1998, no. 415a).
In 1946 Motherwell had titled a
painting The Poet (p36).
38
collages
c43
Collage
1947
Oil and pasted papers on board
26¼ x 18¾ in. (66.7 x 47.6 cm)
inscriptions
Recto, lower right: RM 47
present owner
Smith College Museum of Art,
Northampton, Mass. Acquired by
exchange
provenance
Samuel M. Kootz Gallery; Smith
College Museum of Art, Northampton,
Mass., 1950
solo exhibitions
Smith College Museum of Art,
Northampton, Mass., 1963, cat. no. 1,
frontispiece.
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo,
1983 (traveling), cat. no. 10, color illus.
p. 60 (upside down); shown in Buffalo
and San Francisco only.
Smith College Museum of Art,
Northampton, Mass., 1996.
group exhibitions
San Francisco Museum of Art, 1954.
Smith College Museum of Art,
Northampton, Mass., 1985, cat. no. 41.
Mount Holyoke College Art Museum,
South Hadley, Mass., 2003.
references
Time 1954, p. 76, illus. p. 77; Parks
1960, illus. p. 86; Gaugh 1985, p. 71;
Mattison 1985b, illus. n.p. (fig. 193,
upside down); Smith College Museum
of Art 1986, illus. p. 186 (pl. 171);
Museum of New Mexico exh. cat.
1994, illus. p. 42; Caws 2006, cover
color illus.
comments
This collage contains the same kind of
patterned German wrapping paper that
Motherwell had been using in his collages since 1943. On the verso of this
collage there is an unfinished oil painting by Motherwell (see figure at right);
that unfinished composition has incised
forms that recall the 1945 painting
Small Personage (p32).
Verso of c43
