Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 3 - Flipbook - Page 530
w272
comments
Blue Elegy is the first work in the Elegy
to the Spanish Republic series where
the main forms in the final version
are not black. (The first version of At
Five in the Afternoon, w10, had been
painted with blue but was subsequently
repainted in black.) This work is painted
on the cardboard back panel of a watercolor block, most likely the Sennelier
watercolor block whose label was used
in French Collage (c249). The following
sixteen works in our catalogue (w273–
w288) all measure approximately 6 x 8
inches and appear to have been painted
on watercolor paper from the same
block; the variety of these works illustrates the fluidity with which Motherwell
moved from series to series—in this
case, from Elegies to Opens to various
kinds of gestural imagery.
This small work later became the
model for a large-scale 1981 painting,
also called Blue Elegy (p1026), and
was later sometimes referred to as a
“study” for the larger work. In 1987 it
was also used as the basis for a number
518
of prints: Blue Elegy; Blue Elegy, State I;
and Blue Elegy, State II (Engberg and
Banach 2003, nos. 379–81).
paintings on pa p e r an d p a p e r b o a r d
w273
Elegy to the Spanish Republic
with Blue No. 110A
1968
Acrylic on paper
6 x 8 in. (15.2 x 20.3 cm)
inscriptions
Recto, upper left: RM 68
present owner
Unknown
provenance
Mrs. M. E. Pyrch, 1973; unknown
owner
solo exhibitions
Art Museum, Princeton University,
N.J., 1973, cat. no. 15.
comments
This work is one of several small 1968
paintings on paper and drawings
related to a large-scale painting on canvas, Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 110
of 1971 (p607). In fact, the work that
had originally been titled Elegy to the
Spanish Republic No. 110 was a 1968
drawing in gouache on paper (Fort
Worth Museum of Modern Art). But in
1988 Motherwell assigned the number
110 to the 1971 painting on canvas,
which he had modeled on the 1968
drawing, and that drawing was consequently retitled as a study. He also
assigned the numbers 110A–110E to
this work and to four other related,
small-scale Elegy paintings on paper
(w274–w277), three of which he
designated as studies.
Our reproduction is from an
early black-and-white photograph of
this work; the color of the rectangular
area on the left is blue.
