Robert Motherwell
Maria, 1945
Collage on paper
30 1/4 x 23 3/8 in
76.8 x 59.4 cm
76.8 x 59.4 cm
Signed and dated at lower left: R Motherwell 45
Robert Motherwell titled this collage after his wife Maria, whom he married in 1942. Motherwell began to experiment with collage under the supervision of Surrealist artist Matta and at the...
Robert Motherwell titled this collage after his wife Maria, whom he married in 1942. Motherwell began to experiment with collage under the supervision of Surrealist artist Matta and at the encouragement of legendary arts patron and collector Peggy Guggenheim. The rich tan, brown, and black tones form Motherwell’s signature deep color palette. The artist’s approach to collage combines found elements with a gestural application of paint, a unique style rooted in historical movements such as Cubism, Dada, and Surrealism yet engaged in a creative dialogue with the contemporaneous movement of Abstract Expressionism.
Provenance
The artist;[Samuel Kootz Gallery, by 1946 and until 1950];
Private collection, 1950;
by descent to private collection, New York until the present
Exhibitions
Samuel M. Kootz Gallery, New York, Robert Motherwell: Paintings, Collages, Drawings, January 2-19, 1946, no. 15Arts Club of Chicago, Illinois, Robert Motherwell: Paintings, Collages, Drawings, February 7-27, 1946, no. 13
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Fourteen Americans, September 10-December 8, 1946, no. 65, ill. p. 38
Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Robert Motherwell: Early Collages, May 26-September 8, 2013, pl. 36, fig. 33, ill. p. 49 (illustrated in a photograph)
Literature
William Chapin Seitz, Abstract Expressionist Painting in America: An Interpretation Based on the Work and Thought of Six Key Figures, Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1955, fig. 154, illus.Herta Wescher, Collage, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1968, p. 301
William Chapin Seitz, Abstract Expressionist Painting in America, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1983, fig. 166, illus.
Robert Saltonstall Mattison, The Art of Robert Motherwell During the 1940s, Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1985, p. 168, fig. 139, illus. (as For Maria)
Robert Saltonstall Mattison, "Robert Motherwell: The Formative Years," Studies in the Fine Arts: The Avant-Garde, vol. LVI, 1987, p. 143 (as For Maria)
