Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 3 - Flipbook - Page 57
c51
group exhibitions
McCormick Place Art Gallery,
Chicago, 1961.
Joy of Living
Peoria Art Center, Ill., 1963.
1948
Oil, pasted papers, and ink on board
30 x 24 in. (76.2 x 61 cm)
Washington University in Saint Louis,
1964.
University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa,
1965.
Cedar Rapids Art Center, Iowa, 1966.
references
W[olf] 1948, p. 19; Arnason 1977b,
p. 41, as In Gray and Tan; Arnason
1982, p. 41; Mattison 1985b, pp. 104,
224–25, illus. n.p. (fig. 202); Mattison
1987, pp. 81, 196, 197, illus. p. 192
(fig. 76); Mattison 1988, pp. 172, 185;
Gilbert 1998, pp. 95, 346–47, 559.
comments
This collage contains the patterned
German wrapping paper that
Motherwell began to use in 1943.
c51
inscriptions
Recto, lower center, incised and
inscribed: Motherwell 48
Verso not seen [“titled and dated upper
center on verso: Joy of Living 48,” per
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
exh. cat. 2000]
present owner
Collection of Harry W. and Mary
Margaret Anderson
provenance
Vera G. and Albert A. List; Robert
Elkon Gallery, ca. 1965; Harry W. and
Mary Margaret Anderson, 1984
solo exhibitions
Art Museum, Princeton University,
N.J., 1973, cat. no. 20, illus. p. 23.
group exhibitions
Robert Elkon Gallery, New York, 1976,
cat. no. 25, illus. n.p.
Parrish Art Museum, Southampton,
N.Y., 1980 (traveling), cat. no. 35;
shown in Southampton and New York
only.
Robert Elkon Gallery, New York, 1983.
Stanford University Museum of Art,
Palo Alto, Calif., 1988, cat. no. 16.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,
2000, cat. no. 194, color illus. p. 286
(pl. 166).
references
Arnason 1977b, pp. 19–20; Arnason
1982, illus. p. 22 (pl. 11); Mattison
1985b, p. 224, illus. n.p. (fig. 203);
Mattison 1987, p. 196, erroneously as
The Joy of Living II; Caws 1996b,
p. 168, illus. p. 167; Wentrup 2001,
p. 50.
of Modern Art series in 1949. The composition is related to the drawings by
Georges Braque that were used on the
cover of the Kahnweiler book.
Motherwell titled two other collages Joy of Living, one in 1943 and
another in 1951 (see c3 and c54). While
the use of the title in the 1943 collage
may have been ironic, the later use of
the title may simply reflect the spirit
of Motherwell’s 1950 preface to
Georges Duthuit’s Fauvist Painters:
“Duthuit admits that he often cannot
recall the subjects in Matisse’s pictures;
but the content is always clear. Matisse
named it in one of his fauve masterpieces, The Joy of Living” (reprinted in
Motherwell 2007, p. 91).
comments
This collage contains the patterned
German wrapping paper that
Motherwell began to use in 1943. Its
Cubist overtones reflect Motherwell’s
contemporaneous work on DanielHenry Kahnweiler’s Rise of Cubism,
which was published in the Documents
co lla ges
45
