Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 3 - Flipbook - Page 70
c70
solo exhibitions
Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, May
1957, cat. no. 16.
Pasadena Art Museum, Calif.,
February 1962, cat. no. 23.
Museum of Modern Art, New York,
Robert Motherwell, September 1965
(traveling), New York, cat. no. 32, illus.
p. 22; Amsterdam, cat. no. 27, illus.
n.p.; Essen, cat. no. 27; Turin, cat.
no. 27, illus. p. 83 (pl. 23).
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,
November 1972 (traveling), cat. no. 15,
color illus. p. 30 (pl. 7), illus. p. 63.
Otis Art Institute, Los Angeles, 1974,
cat. no. 15.
group exhibitions
Pasadena Art Museum, Calif., 1963,
cat. no. 47.
La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art,
Calif., 1976.
Knoedler & Company, New York,
February 2000, cover color illus.
references
Coates 1957, p. 87; S[awin] 1957, illus.
p. 56; Janis and Blesh 1962, p. 171, illus.
58
collages
p. 162 (fig. 217); Moritz 1962, p. 310;
Seldis 1962b, sec. A, p. 24; Bourdon
1965, p. 13; Vogue 1965, illus. p. 141
(cat. no. 6, in exhibition); Arnason
1966b, p. 32; Freed 1972a, p. 8; Holmes
1972, sec. 3, p. 8; Kelder 1972, p. 100;
Motherwell in Museum of Fine Arts,
Houston, exh. cat. 1972, p. 63; Museum
of Fine Arts, Houston, Bulletin 1972,
illus. p. 89; Volboudt 1973b, p. 84;
Seldis 1974b, sec. C, p. 82; Hobbs
1975b, pp. 167, 170, illus. n.p. (pl. ix);
Arnason 1976, p. 13; Arnason 1977b,
pp. 50, 73, illus. n.p. (pl. 96); Motherwell
in Arnason 1977b, n.p.; Tyler 1977, sec.
F, p. 7; Anderson 1981, p. 161; Hughes
1981b, p. 163; Arnason 1982, pp. 50, 73,
illus. p. 129 (pl. 141); Motherwell in
Arnason 1982, p. 129; Siegel 1984, p. 6;
Digby and Digby 1985, pp. 175, 176;
Fisher 1992, p. 158; Caws 1996b,
pp. 134, 145, 149, 159, illus. p. 136;
Kunitz 2000, p. 55; Caws 2003, p. 123;
Haxall 2009, pp. 81, 278.
comments
The title of this work contains
Motherwell’s most direct reference to
the tearing process that characterized
many of his collages at this time.
“Tearingness” is meant here not only to
describe the way in which the pieces of
paper are torn rather than cut, but also
the way in which the artist has torn off
pieces of paper that had been pasted
down. The violence of the tearing process
in this collage was clearly meant to convey
strong emotions. In 1972 Motherwell
wrote that this collage was “made during
some of the most tormented and
exhausted years of my life, the tearing was
also equivalent to murdering symbolically” (Motherwell in Museum of Fine
Arts, Houston, exh. cat. 1972, p. 63). A
few years later, he connected the emotional force of the work to what he considered a formal breakthrough, when he
wrote: “The Tearingness of Collaging is, like
many of my titles, a play on words. It
refers not only to an angry tearing of a
collage that seemed to me in its prior
state too hard-edged and formal, but also
it emphasizes that part of my contribution
to the art of collage, the torn rather than
the sharp or cut-out edge” (Motherwell in
Arnason 1977b, caption to plate 96). The
composition of this collage pivots around
a fragment of a Gauloises cigarette package that is placed at its center.
c70
Collage
Alternative Title: Yellow Envelope
1957
Oil and pasted papers on board
16 x 12 in. (40.6 x 30.5 cm)
inscriptions
Recto, upper right, incised and
inscribed: 57 R. Motherwell
present owner
Princeton University Art Museum.
Anonymous gift
provenance
Harriet and Donald Peters, 1957; private collection, 1962; private collection,
ca. 1962; Princeton University Art
Museum, N.J., 1965
solo exhibitions
Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, May
1957, cat. no. 18.
Galleria Odyssia, Rome, 1962, cat.
no. 25, as Yellow Envelope.
comments
This collage contains an envelope
addressed to Motherwell from
Switzerland with a postmark reading
“13 III 57” and part of a blue Gauloises
cigarette package.
