Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné 1941 – 1991 Volume 3 - Flipbook - Page 75
c77
c77
Collage with Ochre and Black
1957–58
Oil and pasted papers on canvas
30 x 20 in. (76.2 x 50.8 cm)
inscriptions
Recto, upper right, incised [painted
over]: [Robert Motherwell 1958]
present owner
Collection of the Butler Institute of
American Art, Youngstown, Ohio. Gift
of Mr. James A. Roemer 1994
provenance
Mr. and Mrs. James Roemer, 1959;
Butler Institute of American Art,
Youngstown, Ohio, 1994
group exhibitions
Butler Trumbull County Branch
Museum, Howland, Ohio, 1996.
Saginaw Art Museum, Mich., 2003
(traveling).
references
Janis and Blesh 1962, p. 171, illus.
p. 162 (fig. 218); Arnason 1977b, illus.
n.p. (pl. 95, in studio, in progress);
Arnason 1982, illus. p. 128 (pl. 140, in
studio, in progress); Sweetkind 1997,
illus. p. 125.
comments
The pasted papers in this collage
include part of a label from a bottle of
Ballantine Scotch whisky, and envelopes addressed to Motherwell from
Great Britain and Cologne, Germany,
both with June 1957 customs stamps.
An early state of the work, signed and
dated “Motherwell 57” at the upper
right, and with a lighter ground, appears
in a photograph of Motherwell’s studio
taken during the winter of 1957–58 (see
fig. 92 in volume 1). The work appears
in its final state, with a new inscription
dating it to 1958, in another studio photograph, taken shortly afterward (Juley
photo no. 195).
c78
c78
Hein, Ma Vie?
Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de
Paris, 1977.
1958
Oil and pasted papers on cardboard
21½ x 16⅞ in. (54.6 x 42.9 cm)
group exhibitions
Alan Gallery, New York, 1958, cat.
no. 10.
inscriptions
Recto not signed, not dated
Galerie Charles Lienhard, Zurich,
December 1962, cat. no. 1182.
Verso (on backing board): “Hein,
ma vie?” Robert Motherwell 1958
oil + collage
references
Ashton 1959b, illus. p. 29, as Hein
Ma Vie.
artist’s studio number
c58-1196
comments
This collage is unusual for its use of a
three-dimensional support, a piece of
perforated, one-inch-thick industrial
cardboard that had been used as a
packaging insert. The text written near
the center is in Motherwell’s hand:
“C’est gai, / Cette vie, / Hein, ma vie / ??”
(It is joyous, / This life, / Eh, my life / ??).
It comes from the eighth stanza of Jules
Laforgue’s poem “Complainte de
l’oubli des morts” (Complaint of the
oblivion of the dead), which reads in its
entirety “C’est gai, / Cette vie, / Hein,
ma vie, / ô gué?” (The word “gué” is an
untranslatable expression of gaiety at
the end of the refrain of a song.)
present owner
Private collection, New York
provenance
Dedalus Foundation, 1991; Knoedler &
Company, 2004; private collection,
New York, 2004
solo exhibitions
New Gallery, Bennington College, Vt.,
1959 (not in catalogue).
Galerie Heinz Berggruen, Paris, 1961,
color illus. n.p.
Galleria Odyssia, Rome, 1962, cat. no. 13.
Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.,
1965, cat. no. 7.
co lla ges
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