Robert
motherwell
1915 – 1991
“What could be more interesting, or in the end, more ecstatic, than in those rare moments when you see another person look at something you've made, and realize that they got it exactly, that your heart jumped to their heart with nothing in between.”
Bio
A key figure among the Abstract Expressionists, Robert Motherwell was known for his intellectual approach and emotionally resonant imagery. Born in Washington and educated at Stanford and Harvard, he studied philosophy before turning to art under the guidance of Meyer Schapiro at Columbia, where he connected with Surrealist émigrés and American modernists like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. Embracing automatism and the subconscious, Motherwell developed a mature style in the 1940s, using bold forms and political themes, most notably in his Elegy to the Spanish Republic series. He exhibited widely, taught at Black Mountain College and Hunter College, and continued to create paintings, prints, and collages throughout his life. Married to artist Helen Frankenthaler in the 1950s, he later settled in Connecticut and remained active in the art world until his death in 1991.
Robert Motherwell
La Casa de la Mancha
24.5" x 30"
Original aquatint, lift ground etching and aquatint printed in two colors (orange, black) on Whatman wove paper