Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 3 - Flipbook - Page 55
c49
references
Hunter 1948b, sec. 2, p. 8; Seventeen
1949, illus. p. 145; Moritz 1962, p. 310;
Seldis 1962b, sec. A, p. 24; Kozloff
1965a, illus. p. 37; Mattison 1985b,
pp. 224–25, illus. n.p. (fig. 201);
Mattison 1987, p. 196; Flam 1991, color
illus. n.p. (pl. 19); Rosand 1997, p. 33.
comments
This collage contains the patterned
German wrapping paper that
Motherwell began to use in 1943.
Motherwell wrote to Margaret Miller
on July 1, 1948, saying that the title of
this collage was supposed to be The Best
Toys Are Paper (for Harold Rosenberg),
which came from a poem by Rosenberg
(Museum of Modern Art Archives,
New York). We have retained the original published title, however, because
after Motherwell sent this letter he
allowed the erroneous title to stand.
The poem in question was Rosenberg’s
“Reminder to the Growing. To Patia.
For a painting by William Baziotes”
(published in Tiger’s Eye 1, no. 7
[March 1949]: p. 82), which begins:
“The best toys are paper that opens
in surprise / Or a lost umbrella dancing
on its one leg / Stars on strings of
infancy.” This collage was done a year
before the poem was published.
Elegy
solo exhibitions
Samuel M. Kootz Gallery, New York,
May 1948, cat. no. 10.
1948
Gouache, pasted papers, and ink on
Masonite
29½ x 23½ in. (74.9 x 59.7 cm)
Samuel M. Kootz Gallery, New York,
October 1949.
c49
inscriptions
Recto, lower right: Motherwell 48
Verso [circled ]: [9]
Verso: elegy 48
artist’s studio number
c48-5062; c48-5214
present owner
The Fogg Art Museum, Harvard
University Art Museums. Louise E.
Bettens Fund
provenance
Samuel M. Kootz Gallery, 1948; Fogg
Art Museum, Harvard University Art
Museums, Cambridge, Mass., 1949
New Gallery, Bennington College, Vt.,
1959, cat. no. 12.
Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo,
Brazil, 1961, cat. no. 7.
Pasadena Art Museum, Calif.,
February 1962, cat. no. 12, illus. n.p.
Smith College Museum of Art,
Northampton, Mass., 1963, cat. no. 4,
illus. n.p.
New Gallery, Charles Hayden Memorial
Library, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Cambridge, 1963.
Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.,
1965, cat. no. 3.
co lla ges
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