Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 3 - Flipbook - Page 69
c69
Baltimore Museum of Art, July 1959.
Baltimore Museum of Art, 1963.
Goucher College, Towson, Md., 1964.
Baltimore Museum of Art, 1966.
Baltimore Museum of Art, 1973.
National Gallery of Art, Washington,
D.C., 1996, cat. no. 108, color illus.
p. 140.
National Gallery of Art, Washington,
D.C., 2001, cat. no. 91, color illus.
p. 203.
references
W[escher] 1954, illus. (fig. 1, in early
state, as La plage de Douvres [Dover
Beach]); Seitz 1955, p. 79, illus. n.p.
(fig. 179, in early state), referred to in
text and in illus. as Dover Beach; Janis
and Blesh 1962, p. 171, illus. p. 163
(fig. 219); Claus 1965, illus. p. 5, erroneously as Collage; Freudenheim 1973,
n.p., illus. n.p.; Arnason 1977b, illus.
n.p. (pl. 94); Payant 1978–79, illus.
p. 35 (in early state, as Dover Beach);
Sundell 1980, pp. ix, 39, color illus.
p. 39; Arnason 1982, illus. p. 128
(pl. 139); Seitz 1983, p. 29, illus. n.p.
(fig. 192, in early state), referred to in
text and in illus. as Dover Beach; Caws
1996b, p. 153.
comments
A different version of this collage, containing a pasted paper on which the
artist signed and dated the work “52/R.
Motherwell,” was first exhibited as
Dover Beach at the Samuel M. Kootz
Gallery in April 1953 (see fig. 68 in volume 1). That 1952 version of the work
was exhibited three more times in
1953 and 1954, and it was returned to
Motherwell when he left the Kootz
Gallery in February 1955. Sometime
before May 1957, when the work was
exhibited at the Sidney Janis Gallery,
Motherwell reworked the collage by
tearing off a number of the pasted elements, reusing some of them and adding others. As a result, many traces of
torn paper and glue residue are visible
on the work, which was then retitled
The End of Dover Beach and dated 1957.
The title refers to Matthew
Arnold’s poem “Dover Beach,” which
Motherwell characterized in a 1961
interview with Rudi Blesh as “a 19th
century Wasteland” (see “Writings by
the Artist,” in the Bibliography). The
“end” of “Dover Beach” appears to
refer both to Motherwell’s destruction
of the collage called Dover Beach and
to the famous, despairing last lines of
Arnold’s poem: “Nor certitude, nor
peace, nor help for pain; / And we are
here as on a darkling plain / Swept with
confused alarms of struggle and flight, /
Where ignorant armies clash by night.”
c69
The Tearingness of Collaging
1957
Oil, pasted papers, and charcoal on
board
29⅝ x 21⅜ in. (75.2 x 54.3 cm)
inscriptions
Recto, center (on collage element): 57
R. Motherwell
Verso: “the tearingness of
collaging” Robert Motherwell 1957
artist’s studio number
c57-5087
present owner
Collection of Irma and Norman
Braman
provenance
Zurier Collection, 1958; [Christie’s,
New York, May 5, 1982, lot 16, illus.
(not sold)]; Irma and Norman
Braman, 1982
co lla ges
57
