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Robert Motherwell Art

American, 1915-1991

The name of painter, printmaker and writer Robert Motherwell (1915–91) is often taken as synonymous with the New York School, whose name he coined. Motherwell was the youngest of this group of Abstract Expressionists working in art, dance, poetry and music in 1950s and '60s New York City, which included Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Philip Guston, Helen Frankenthaler and Mark Rothko.

Born in Aberdeen, Washington, in 1915, Motherwell had perhaps the broadest and best education of any of the New York School coterie, with an extensive background in philosophy, literature and art history. He earned a BA in philosophy in 1937 from Stanford University and was working toward a PhD in the subject at Harvard when he interrupted his studies for a yearlong trip to Europe, where he fell in love with European modernism.

After returning, in 1940 he enrolled Columbia to study art history. It was there that he met a group of exiled Parisian Surrealists, and encounter that proved influential on his style. Motherwell began to integrate the idea of “automatism” — unmediated gestures that reflect deeper psychological impulses — into his work, pioneering a new form of Abstract Expressionism that came to characterize the New York School.

Works like the 1967 Beside the Sea no. 45, an acrylic on canvas, and the 1966 lithograph New York International epitomize Motherwell’s use of simple shapes in boldly contrasting colors, executed in quick, gestural strokes that occasionally evoke figures, suggesting a latent narrative despite their obvious abstraction.

Throughout his career, Motherwell taught painting at Hunter College, in New York, and at Black Mountain College, in North Carolina, where his work influenced the likes of Cy Twombly, Robert Rauschenberg and Kenneth Noland. His influence as one of the founding fathers of American Abstract Expressionism remains profound.

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Artist: Robert Motherwell
Untitled
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Robert Motherwell (1915-1991) Untitled 1990 Acrylic and coloured pencil on panel 40.6 x 50.8 cms (16 x 20 ins) RM13143 P1195 The composition of this painting is based on the left ...
Category

1990s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art

Materials

Acrylic, Panel, Color Pencil

Shem the Penman #19
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Robert Motherwell Shem the Penman #19 1983 Acrylic and charcoal on canvas 25.4 x 35.6 cms (10 x 14 ins) RM13642 P1069 Recto, upper left: RM Verso: R. Motherwell \ 1983 Verso (on b...
Category

1980s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art

Materials

Charcoal, Acrylic

The Studio
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Robert Motherwell The Studio 1987 Acrylic and charcoal on canvas 152.4 x 182.9 cms (60 x 72 ins) RM13966 P1140 When Motherwell made The Studio, in 1987, he was nearing the end of an...
Category

1980s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art

Materials

Charcoal, Acrylic

Open No. 126: In Beige with Blue
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Robert Motherwell (1915-1991) Open No. 126: In Beige with Blue 1970 Acrylic on canvas 61 x 76.2 cms (24 x 30 ins) RM13967 P533 The dedication on the verso of this painting is to the artist and editor Alexander Liberman (1912-1999) and his wife Tatiana (1906-1991). Signed, titled, dated twice 1970 and inscribed Merry Xmas to Tatiana & Alex Liberman from their friend Bob Motherwell on the stretcher. Provenance: Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Liberman, New York (gift of the artist). High Museum of Art, Atlanta (gift of the above in 1991). Sotheby's New York, 14 November 2012, lot 138. Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London (acquired at the above sale). Exhibited: Galerie Templon, Paris, Robert Motherwell Open...
Category

1970s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art

Materials

Acrylic

Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 163
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Robert Motherwell Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 163 1979-82 Acrylic and Conte crayon on board 59.1 x 74.3 cms (23 1/4 x 29 1/4 ins) RM14159 P1061 Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 163 is a fine example of Robert Motherwell’s most acclaimed body of work, the Elegies to the Spanish Republic. As important as Barnett Newman’s zips and Jackson Pollock’s drips for their revolutionary contribution to art history, the Elegies are Motherwell’s most extensive series; he executed over 140 paintings using this motif, beginning in 1948 until his death in 1991. Nearly every major museum collection, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of Art, New York, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, have in their permanent collection an Elegy to the Spanish Republic. Intended to be read as a lamentation or funeral song after the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), Motherwell’s Elegies to the Spanish Republic are a lyrical and poetic memorial to the immense human loss and suffering endured during these harrowing years. Motherwell was a young student of twenty-one when the horrors of the Spanish Civil War commenced in 1936, and he would later reflect that it was the most “moving political event” of his youth. In 1939, the Spanish Civil War concluded with the fall of Spain’s democratically elected socialist government, which was deposed by a fascist coalition led by dictator Francisco Franco, whose dictatorship would persist until 1975. In 1948 nearly a decade after the end of the Spanish Civil War, Motherwell created his first Elegy with a small drawing to accompany a poem by Harold Rosenberg. Over the next four decades, Motherwell would pursue this same structural and thematic motif relentlessly; taken as a whole, the Elegies confirm the resounding impact that this war had on the young artist, and indeed stand as a powerful monument to the overwhelming loss during and in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. Motherwell stated: “I meant the word 'elegy' in the title. I was twenty-one in 1936, when the Spanish Civil War began…The Spanish Civil War was even more to my generation than Vietnam was to be thirty years later to its generation, and should not be forgotten, even though la guerre est finie.” (David Craven in Joan M...
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1980s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art

Materials

Conté, Acrylic, Board

Two Figures No. 7
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Robert Motherwell Two Figures No.7 1958 Oil on paperboard mounted on board 18.9 x 23.9 cms (7 7/16 x 9 7/16 ins) RM14236 W36 Motherwell painted this work in Saint-Jean-de-Luz during...
Category

1950s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art

Materials

Oil, Board

Royal Dirge
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Robert Motherwell Royal Dirge 1972 Acrylic on canvas 182.2 x 137.2 cms (71 3/4 x 54 ins) RM14402 P705 Signed and dated 72 upper left (recto) Signed, titled and dated 27 October 1972 (verso) Artist's studio number P72-5207 Provenance: Lawrence Rubin Gallery, New York. Solomon Byron Smith, Lake Forest (acquired in 1973). Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (bequest from the above in 1980). Christie's, New York, 9 November 2011. Galerie Sho Contemporary Art, Tokyo. Private collection, acquired from the above. Sotheby's New York, 14 November 2013. Bernard Jacobson Gallery, London, 2013 . Exhibited: Galerie Templon, Paris, Robert Motherwell Open...
Category

1970s Robert Motherwell Art

Materials

Acrylic

Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 60
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Robert Motherwell Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 60 1960 Oil on paperboard 17.8 x 23.8 cms (7 x 9 3/8 ins) RM14624 W111 Provenance: Harriet Mnuchin Weiner, 1961. Christie's, New ...
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1960s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art

Materials

Oil

Homage to Catalonia
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Robert Motherwell Homage to Catalonia 1985 Acrylic on canvas 61 x 91.4 cms (24 x 36 ins) RM14749 P1116 This painting was begun in 1985 as a work from the Hollow Men series. By 1986 ...
Category

1980s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art

Materials

Acrylic

Paroles peintes III: Untitled
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Open-bite etching printed in dark, brownish black on fibrous Japan paper. Signed "R. Motherwell," or "Motherwell" in pencil, lower right. Numbered in pencil, lower right. Paper size:...
Category

Mid-20th Century Robert Motherwell Art

Materials

Etching

Beau Geste I
By Robert Motherwell
Located in New York, NY
From a portfolio of six individual lithographs, each created as Robert Motherwell’s visualization of six poems by Marcelin Pleynet, Beau Geste I was printed in 1989 by Teluride Press...
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20th Century Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art

Materials

Lithograph

Open #125: Jeannie
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Robert Motherwell Open #125: Jeannie 1969 Acrylic and charcoal on canvasboard 76.2 x 50.8 cms (30 x 20 ins) RM9796 P532 The title of this painting refers to Motherwell's elder daugh...
Category

1960s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art

Materials

Acrylic, Canvas, Charcoal

Automatism No. 11
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Robert Motherwell Automatism No. 11 1965 Ink and oil on paper 67.3 x 61.6 cms (26 1/2 x 24 1/4 ins) Part of the Beside the Sea series, a series of oil paintings influenced by Mother...
Category

1960s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art

Materials

Ink, Oil

Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 110C
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Robert Motherwell Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 110C 1968 Acrylic and graphite on paper 15.2 x 20.3 cms (6 x 8 ins) Robert Motherwell's Elegies series represent one of the iconic motifs of Abstract Expressionism.  Based on a 1948 ink illustration the artist executed accompanying a Harold Rosenberg poem, “A Bird for every bird,” the drawing shows the hypnotically repetitive patterning of ovoids and vertical beams.  The stark contrast of the black ink on white paper references the symbolic use of the color black by artists such as Goya, Manet and Matisse to convey death, loss, and tragedy.  Motherwell was quite affected by the turbulence of the Spanish Civil War and alludes to the Spanish republic in his Elegies. Motherwell’s plumbing the depths of poetry, history, and primordial art in the Elegies is considered a hallmark of nascent Abstract Expressionist painting in its desire to "excavate" essential imagery of mankind. Motherwell, who originally trained as a philosophy scholar and later became of the great editors of 20th century art documents, grasped very early on the crucial importance that in order to contribute meaningfully to the canon of modern art, one must create a principle of aesthetics. Through the surrealist concept of automatism, the artist finally found the creative principle that eventually governed his extraordinary artistic output and produced the Elegies, one of the most salient, immediate painterly images of 20th century abstract painting. In fact, he has alluded to the fact that each one of his Elegies begins as an automatic drawing, and certain shapes are then blocked to create the signature armature of the vertical bars and ovals. The Elegies seem to possess the power of an archetypal image, an image the mind already grasps on a subconscious level. Motherwell's play of dualities of black and white as well as other dichotomies—the geometric versus the organic, chaos versus order, death versus life—was a condition of living through a tumultuous period in American history. During an interview, he vividly recalled the 1940s as the time when society was ordered by a set of contradictions.  In Motherwell's Elegies, he not only discovered an incredibly elastic pictorial language that would communicate on multiple levels but also acknowledged these contradictions in a manner that would resonate in abstract form.  The present work served as a model for a painting, Spanish Elegy...
Category

1960s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art

Materials

Acrylic, Laid Paper, Graphite

Brasileira
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Robert Motherwell Brasileira 1975 Acrylic, graphite and printed paper collage on canvas laid on board 121 x 91 cms (47 5/8 x 35 7/8 ins) Provenance: Ace Gallery, Los Angeles Doug...
Category

1970s Robert Motherwell Art

Materials

Paper, Acrylic

America - La France variations I, 46/70 color lithograph with collage
By Robert Motherwell
Located in Three Oaks, MI
America-La France Variations I 1983-4. Lithograph in colors with collage on Tyler Graphics Ltd. handmade paper. Signed in pencil Numbered 46/70 (there were also XVIII artist’s proofs...
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1980s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art

Materials

Lithograph

Red Samurai, from Octavio Paz suite
By Robert Motherwell
Located in Miami, FL
TECHNICAL INFORMATION: Red Samurai, from Octavio Paz suite 1987-88 Lithograph and linoleum cut in colors with chine appliqué on handmade Japanese Masa Dos...
Category

1980s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art

Materials

Handmade Paper, Lithograph, Linocut

Sirens II - 20th Century, Robert Motherwell, Figurative, Print, Expressionist
By Robert Motherwell
Located in Köln, DE
An aquatint etching out of 1988 in a very good condition and bright colours. 57 x 66 cm. Edition of 90, signed and numbered.
Category

1980s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art

Materials

Aquatint

The Red and Black No. 52
By Robert Motherwell
Located in Houston, TX
Robert Motherwell's "The Red and Black No.52" is an abstract collage that incorporates oil based etching ink, pasted papers, and aquatint on paper. The piece was created between the ...
Category

1980s Modern Robert Motherwell Art

Materials

Paper, Ink, Aquatint

Study for Open Series
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Acrylic and graphite on paper. 15.2 x 21 cms (6 x 8 1/4 ins)
Category

20th Century Robert Motherwell Art

Materials

Acrylic, Graphite

Red, White and Blue No. 2
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Acrylic and pasted paper on paper 21.6 x 17.8 cms (8 1/2 x 7 ins)
Category

20th Century Robert Motherwell Art

Materials

Paper, Acrylic

Red, White and Blue No. 1
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Acrylic and pasted paper on paper 21.6 x 17.8 cms (8 1/2 x 7 ins)
Category

20th Century Robert Motherwell Art

Materials

Paper, Acrylic

The Brown Stripe
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Acrylic and pasted papers on paper 35.6 x 21 cms (14 x 8 1/2 ins)
Category

20th Century Robert Motherwell Art

Materials

Paper, Acrylic

Untitled
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Acrylic on paper 79.1 x 106.4 cms (31 1/8 x 41 15/16 ins)
Category

20th Century Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art

Materials

Acrylic

French Revolution Bicentennial No. 5
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Acrylic, enamel and pasted papers on paper 25.4 x 35.6 cms (10 x 14 ins)
Category

20th Century Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art

Materials

Mixed Media

Cabaret No. 2
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Acrylic, pasted papers, and graphite on paper 56 x 26 cms (22 x 10 1/4 ins)
Category

20th Century Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art

Materials

Mixed Media, Acrylic

Cabaret No. 8
By Robert Motherwell
Located in London, GB
Acrylic, pencil and collage on paper 55.9 x 26 cms (22 x 10 1/4 ins)
Category

20th Century Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art

Materials

Mixed Media, Acrylic

St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (Poster) -- signed limited edition
By Robert Motherwell
Located in Missouri, MO
Original color lithograph designed by Robert Motherwell for the 94th Season, Powell Symphony Hall, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra From the limited edition of 120 + A.P.s on Arches Cove...
Category

1970s Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art

Materials

Lithograph

Carnegie Hall
By Robert Motherwell
Located in San Francisco, CA
This artwork, titled "Carnegie Hall," from the suite New York, New York, 1982, is an original color lithograph with silkscreen and embossing by American ...
Category

Late 20th Century Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell Art

Materials

Lithograph, Screen

Robert Motherwell art for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Robert Motherwell art available for sale on 1stDibs. If you’re browsing the collection of art to introduce a pop of color in a neutral corner of your living room or bedroom, you can find work that includes elements of orange, red, blue and other colors. You can also browse by medium to find art by Robert Motherwell in lithograph, etching, paint and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the abstract style. Not every interior allows for large Robert Motherwell art, so small editions measuring 1 inch across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Sam Francis, Paul Jenkins, and Helen Frankenthaler. Robert Motherwell art prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $150 and tops out at $3,600,000, while the average work can sell for $9,500.
Questions About Robert Motherwell Art
  • 1stDibs ExpertMarch 22, 2022
    Robert Motherwell painted using techniques borrowed from action and color field painting. He sometimes dipped thinned paint right onto the canvas. In other works, he soaked paints into an unprimed work surface. Find a variety of Robert Motherwell art on 1stDibs.
  • 1stDibs ExpertAugust 29, 2024
    No, Robert Motherwell was not a Surrealist painter. The American artist was the youngest member of the New York School, a group of Abstract Expressionists working in art, dance, poetry and music in the 1950s and '60s. However, Motherwell did meet a group of exiled Parisian Surrealists while attending Columbia University to study art history in the 1940s. This encounter proved influential in his style. Inspired by their work, Motherwell began to integrate the idea of “automatism," unmediated gestures that reflect deeper psychological impulses, into his work, pioneering a new form of Abstract Expressionism that came to characterize the New York School. On 1stDibs, find a selection of Robert Motherwell art.
  • 1stDibs ExpertApril 5, 2022
    Robert Motherwell was a part of the art movement called Abstract Expressionism. Artists who participated in the movement sought to express emotions through abstract forms. You'll find a range of Robert Motherwell art from some of the world’s top sellers on 1stDibs.

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