Robert Motherwell
Robert Motherwell (born January 24, 1915 in Aberdeen , Washington , † July 16, 1991 in Provincetown , Massachusetts ) was an American painter of Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism .
life and work
Motherwell studied philosophy from 1932 to 1938, first at the California School of Fine Arts and then at Stanford University , where he graduated with a bachelor's degree . He also studied philosophy and French literature at Harvard University . After a two-year stay in Paris from 1938 to 1939 , where he made friends with the later European artists in exile, Piet Mondrian and Fernand Léger , Motherwell studied art history in New York at Columbia University with Meyer Schapiro and Kurt Seligmann . In 1940 he met Robert Matta , with whom he took a trip to Mexico that same year , where he met the Austrian surrealist Wolfgang Paalen . After several months with Paalen, he returned to New York in 1941, where he helped Paalen to propagate his counter-surrealist ideas and worked on his art magazine DYN . In 1945 he taught at Black Mountain College , North Carolina . Between 1951 and 1958 Motherwell was a lecturer at Hunter College in New York.
His drawings and large-format paintings are characterized by dominant black punctuation. From the 1960s, there was an approach to Color Field Painting by Morris Louis . Motherwell was one of the most important exponents of American Abstract Expressionism. Mostly it is assigned to action painting , but it is considered to be the more “intellectual counterpart” to painters like Jackson Pollock . In 1947/1948 he founded the "Subjects of the Artists" school together with William Baziotes , Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman .
From 1958 to 1971 he was married to the painter Helen Frankenthaler . In 1972 he married the German photographer Renate Ponsold , with whom he remained in a relationship until his death.
Awards and honors
- 1964: Guggenheim International Award
- 1970: Elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
- 1977: Médaille de Vermeil of the City of Paris
- 1985: Elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- 1988: Appointment as Officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of the French Ministry of Culture
- 1989: National Medal of Arts
- 1990: Elected Associate Member ( ANA ) of the National Academy of Design , New York
Exhibitions (selection)
- 1951: 9th Street Art Exhibition , New York
- 1959: documenta II , Kassel
- 1964: documenta III , Kassel
- 1965: Museum of Modern Art , New York; Retrospective
Works (selection)
- 1944: Mallarmé's Swan , Cleveland Museum of Art
- 1948–1991: Series of pictures Elegy to the Spanish Republic , approx. 170 variations on a theme, triggered by the poem "Llanto por Ignacia Sanchez Meijas" by Federico García Lorca and his murder by Falangists in 1936
- 1960: Summer in Italy , State Gallery Stuttgart
literature
- Volker Rattemeyer (ed.): The spiritual in art. From the Blue Rider to Abstract Expressionism . Museum Wiesbaden , Wiesbaden 2010, ISBN 978-3-89258-088-1
- Wieland Schmied : Presence and Eternity. Traces of the transcendent in the art of our time , Martin-Gropius-Bau , Berlin April 7 to June 24, 1990, Edition Cantz, Stuttgart 1990; ISBN 3-89322-179-4
- Karin von Maur , Gudrun Inboden (arrangement): Painting and sculpture of the 20th century , Staatsgalerie Stuttgart 1982
- Jürgen Claus : The model picture: Robert Motherwell , in: Jürgen Claus, Kunst heute , Rowohlt, Reinbek 1965
Web links
- Literature by and about Robert Motherwell in the catalog of the German National Library
- Museum Morsbroich about Robert Motherwell ( Memento from November 12, 2004 in the Internet Archive )
- Robert Motherwell at Artcyclopedia
- Robert Motherwell Archives and Papers at the Dedalus Foundation
- Materials by and about Robert Motherwell in the documenta archive
Individual evidence
- ↑ Andreas Neufert: On love and death. The life of the surrealist Wolfgang Paalen . Parthas, Berlin 2015, pp. 441ff., 453ff. and 465ff.
- ^ A b The Dedalus Foundation's Robert Motherwell Scrapbooks , The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York, accessed February 17, 2015
- ↑ nationalacademy.org: Past Academicians "M" / Motherwell, Robert ANA 1990 ( Memento of the original from September 23, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on July 4, 2015)
personal data | |
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SURNAME | Motherwell, Robert |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American painter |
DATE OF BIRTH | January 24, 1915 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Aberdeen, Washington |
DATE OF DEATH | July 16, 1991 |
Place of death | Provincetown , Massachusetts |