Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 3 - Flipbook - Page 608
w533
comments
This work was used as the model for
two prints that Motherwell made in
1991 to help raise funds for the Paris
Review (Engberg and Banach 2003,
nos. 518–19).
w534
Elegy to the Spanish Republic
No. 150
Ca. 1978
Acrylic and lithograph on paper
18 x 31 in. (45.7 x 78.7 cm), irreg.
inscriptions
Recto, lower right: Motherwell
artist’s studio number
p78-2182
present owner
Universidad de Salamanca. Colegio
Mayor Fonseca
provenance
Universidad de Salamanca, Spain, 1978
group exhibitions
Palacio de la Lonja, Sala Luzán, Caja
de Ahorros de la Inmaculada, and
Palacio de Montemuzo, Zaragoza,
Spain, 1996, cat. no. 95, color illus. n.p.,
as Elegía a la República Española (Elegy
to the Spanish Republic).
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo
Esteban Vicente, Segovia, Spain, 2003,
color illus. p. 105, as Elegía a la
596
paintings on p a p e r an d p a p e r b o a r d
República española (Elegy to the Spanish
Republic).
comments
Motherwell painted this work in
black and white over an impression of
his 1975 lithograph Spanish Elegy I
(Engberg and Banach 2003, no. 174),
which was based on his 1975 drawing
Elegy Sketch (Collection of Mason H.
Drake).
Motherwell did a number of paintings over Elegy lithographs in 1978 (see
also w535–w540). These works have
previously been dated to 1975, the year
the print impression was created, but
apparently the acrylic paint was added
to most of the lithographic impressions
around 1978 (as noted by Motherwell
when he gave this work to the
University of Salamanca).
Motherwell presented this work to
the University of Salamanca, in Spain,
at the same time that he presented
a closely related work, Elegy to the
Spanish Republic No. 151 (w535), to the
University of Coimbra, in Portugal, on
the occasion of the “Conference on
Communications and Political Culture:
The Iberian Peninsula in Transition”
held at Columbia University, New York,
on October 23–25, 1978. (This conference was held just weeks before the
ratification of the new Spanish constitution and two years after the election
of a democratic government in
Portugal, its first since the coup that
brought the dictator António de
Oliveira Salazar to power in 1932.)
Motherwell was unable to attend the
ceremonies because of an illness in his
family, but he sent a statement to be
read on his behalf, explaining his gifts
of these two works to universities:
“I wanted to give them to universities
because the search for the truth, and
not political position, is what makes
men ultimately free—internally and
externally” (statement dated October
1978; see “Writings by the Artist,” in
the Bibliography).
