Robert Motherwell (American, 1915-1991)
The youngest member of the circle of first-generation Abstract Expressionist painters, Robert Motherwell was unique in this group for his extensive writings on art as well as being prolific in creating prints and collages. Born in Aberdeen, Washington, Motherwell grew up intending to become a philosopher and received a bachelor's degree in philosophy at Stanford University before heading east for graduate study at Harvard. As a child, Motherwell's artistic talent was encouraged with a scholarship for study at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, but he did not begin painting seriously until the early 1940s.
In 1941, after traveling to Mexico with Chilean surrealist Matta Echaurren, Motherwell decided to paint full time and moved to Greenwich Village. During this decade, he was most influenced by European surrealists, with interest in the unconscious mind and automatism. He began creating free-association collages that he sometimes used as underpinnings for future painting compositions. In 1943, art collector and patron Peggy Guggenheim invited Motherwell (along with Jackson Pollock and William Baziotes) to contribute work to an all-collage group show. The following year, Motherwell had his first one-man show at the Guggenheim's Art of This Century Gallery. In the late 1960s, Motherwell began his Open series, a striking departure from his gestural paintings. Typically, these were defined by fields of color marked with faint charcoal lines suggesting a door or a window. The Open paintings were originally inspired by the sight of a small canvas leaning against a larger one. For the rest of his career, Motherwell painted in both expressive and austere modes, in addition to creating collages and collaborating with printmakers to make limited edition prints.
Throughout his career he was given important retrospective exhibitions worldwide and his paintings, prints, and collages are in most major museum collections. The influential art critic Clement Greenberg, lauded him as one of the very best of the Abstract Expressionist painters.
