Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 3 - Flipbook - Page 557
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w354
comments
This painting was done on the upper
left corner of a larger, vertically oriented
sheet of paper, which Motherwell
cropped to its present size and signed
and dated “c. 70” sometime between
1975 and 1978. It was originally painted
as a small study for the large painting
Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 100
(p850), which Motherwell had started
in 1962; this picture gives some idea of
what that large Elegy painting looked
like in an early state. This painting on
paper appears, still uncropped, in a
1975 photograph of Motherwell’s studio (see fig. 240 in volume 1), along
with Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 100
(still in progress), and two other studies
(p605 and p849). It was first photographed cropped as a horizontal work
in November 1978 (Sloman photo
no. 757).
Motherwell used this work not
only as the model for the middle state
of Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 100,
but also as the initial composition of
another large-scale painting, Elegy to the
Spanish Republic No. 126 (p851).
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Untitled
Untitled
Ca. 1970
Acrylic and charcoal on paper
20⅜ x 29½ in. (51.8 x 74.9 cm)
Ca. 1970
Acrylic and charcoal on paperboard
22 x 30 in. (55.9 x 76.2 cm)
[ Open Study (In Blue and
Pink)]
inscriptions
Recto not signed, not dated
inscriptions
Recto not signed, not dated
artist’s studio number
d-3826; p-3596
artist’s studio number
p71/72-1091
present owner
Dedalus Foundation
present owner
Dedalus Foundation
provenance
Dedalus Foundation, 1991
provenance
Dedalus Foundation, 1991
comments
The color and composition of this
painting on paper recall those of small
works on canvas board done around
1970, such as Open No. 144: Blue on
Scarlet (p549), Untitled (Red Open)
(p575), and The Red Wall (p576). We do
not know whether Motherwell painted
the black form at the center of this
work around 1970 or added it at a later
date, perhaps as late as 1979 (see a similarly painted form in Blue Open with
Ochre, p980).
1970
Acrylic and graphite on paper
31 x 23 in. (78.7 x 58.4 cm)
inscriptions
Recto, upper right: RM 70
artist’s studio number
p70-655
present owner
Dedalus Foundation
provenance
Dedalus Foundation, 1991
solo exhibitions
Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London,
October 2008.
Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London,
June 2009.
references
Mattison et al. 2009, color illus. p. 95.
p a i n tin gs on paper and paperbo ard
545
