Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 3 - Flipbook - Page 62
c58
c58
The Easel I
1952
Casein and pasted papers on board
29⅞ x 20⅛ in. (75.9 x 51.1 cm)
inscriptions
Recto, lower right: R.M.
Verso: “The Easel I”
Verso [partially torn away]: Robert
Motherwell 19[illegible]
Verso [partially torn away]: [co]llage +
casein
artist’s studio number
c54-5034
present owner
Knoedler & Company
provenance
Dr. Montague Ullman, ca. 1955;
[Sotheby’s, New York, November 18,
50
collages
1998, lot 223, illus. (not sold)];
[Sotheby’s, New York, November 12,
2008, lot 112, illus.]; Knoedler &
Company, 2008
solo exhibitions
Samuel M. Kootz Gallery, New York,
April 1953.
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,
November 1972 (traveling), cat. no. 12,
color illus. p. 27 (pl. 6), illus. p. 60, as
The Easel.
Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, 1976
(traveling), cat. no. 17, illus. p. 102, as
The Easel.
Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de
Paris, 1977, illus. n.p., as The Easel.
group exhibitions
Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo,
Brazil, December 1953, cat. no. 15.
College of Fine and Applied Arts,
Urbana, Ill., 1955, illus. n.p. (pl. 2), as
The Easel.
references
C[ampbell] 1953, p. 52, illus. p. 52;
George 1955, p. 15, illus. p. 15; Seitz
1955, illus. n.p. (fig. 175); Arnason
1966b, pp. 27, 32; Wescher 1968, p. 301,
as The Easel, illus. p. 398 (pl. 290);
Freed 1972a, p. 8, as The Easel; Arnason
1977b, pp. 38–39, 41, illus. p. 39 (pl. 17),
referred to in text and illus. as The
Easel No. 1; Franzke 1977, illus. p. 65;
Arnason 1982, p. 39, illus. p. 39 (pl. 31,
as The Easel No. 1); Seitz 1983, illus.
n.p. (fig. 187, as The Easel ); Pleynet
1989b, p. 25, color illus. p. 87; Caws
1996b, p. 128, illus. p. 130, referred to
in text and in illus. as The Easel No. 1;
Thierolf 2002, pp. 266–67, illus. p. 266
(fig. 2, as The Easel); Caws 2003, p. 84.
comments
Part of the cover from the French journal L’Esprit nouveau, vol. 13 (December
1921), is placed at the upper center of
this collage. This is one of the first collages in which Motherwell used a newspaper or magazine page, and it has strong
affinities with Cubist collage generally.
Although this collage is usually
dated to around 1954, an April 7, 1953,
consignment list for Motherwell’s solo
exhibition at the Samuel M. Kootz
Gallery lists it as a 1952 work, and it is
also dated 1952 on a 1954 Kootz Gallery
photography list. At the lower center of
the collage, a partially painted-over
movie schedule of films playing in East
Hampton in early August 1952 lists several films, all released in 1952.
Motherwell reworked a related
1953 drawing, originally titled The
Easel II, in 1958 as an untitled painting
on paper (w87).
