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Artist or Maker: Robert Motherwell (1915-1991)

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Provenance: Sidney Janis Gallery, New York
Mr. and Mrs. Gifford Phillips, New York
Gift from the above to the present owner

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Exhibited: New York, Sidney Janis Gallery, Robert Motherwell, December 1962 no. 3 (illustrated as No. 77 in early state).
Cambridge, MA, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Hayden Gallery, Robert Motherwell, February-March 1963.
Kassel, Museum Fridericianum Orangerie, Alte Gallerie, Documenta III, June-October 1964, p. 269 (illustrated).
Tokyo, The National Museum of Art, Two Decades of American Painting, organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, October-November 1967, no. 57.
Pasadena Art Museum, Selections from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Gifford Phillips, September-October 1971.
Pasadena Art Museum, Post 1950 Paintings, July-September 1972 (as No. 77).
Pasadena Art Museum, Post 1945 Paintings, October 1972-January 1973 (as No. 77).
Los Angeles, Otis Art Institute, Robert Motherwell in California Collections, November 1974-January 1975, no. 20 (illustrated as No. 77).
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, American Art at Mid-Century: The Subjects of the Artist, June 1978-January 1979, p. 112, pl. 13 (illustrated as No. 77).

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Literature: I. H. Sandler, "New York Letter," Quadrum, 1963, p. 116 (as No. 77).
S. Tillim, "Month in Review," Arts Magazine, 37, no. 4, January 1963, p. 40 (as No. 77).
D. Ashton, "Robert Motherwell: Passion and Transfiguration," Studio, XXVI, no. 23, May 1964, p. 93 (illustrated as No. 77).
H. H. Arnason, "On Robert Motherwell and His Early Work," Art International, X, no. 4, April 1966, p. 30 (as No. 77).
J. Shaw-Eagle, "A Dissection of Self," Artnews, 1977, p. 128 (illustrated in color as No. 77).
E. A. Carmean, Jr., American Art at Mid-Century: The Subjects of the Artists, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., 1978, p. 112.
H. H. Arnason, Robert Motherwell, New York, 1982, pp. 46 and 124-125, pl. 136-137 (illustrated in color as No. 77).
F. O'Hara, Standing Still and Walking in New York, New York, 1983, p. 151 (as No. 77).
C. W. Glenn, "The Collectors: A Cultivated Vision," Architectural Digest, June 1983, p. 111 (illustrated in color).

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Notes: Property of the Yale University Art Gallery

This work will be included in the forthcoming Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings & Collages by Robert Motherwell being prepared by the Dedalus Foundation.

*This lot may be exempt from Sales Tax, as set forth in the Sales Tax Notice at the back of this catalogue.

Motherwell is a painter of series-throughout his career, a relatively small number of compositional starting points or subject matters intrigued him and he explored the possibilities within each one. Some of his most noteworthy series are his early Spanish Prisoner works from the1940's, his Open Series from 1968 on, and the Spanish Elegy paintings for which the artist is best known.

Motherwell's first Elegy was painted 1948. Curiously, the series which is associated with mural-size paintings began with a modest drawing, little more than a doodle, measuring 14 x 11 in. Motherwell was co-editor of the short-lived journal Possibilities and Harold Rosenberg submitted a short, bleak poem for its next issue (which would never be published). Motherwell illuminated the somewhat bleak poem with a simple Elegy (which was named well after it was painted), consisting of three staunch vertical shafts, divided by three black ovoid forms. Given that the publication would be printed in black and white, Motherwell restricted himself to black ink, despite being a brilliant colorist in the majority of earlier works. The international event that most affected Motherwell was the Spanish Civil War. This tragic conflict, which ravaged Spain and brought the Facist dictator Franco to power, inspired a generation of artists to action and was the inspiration for Picasso's epic Guernica. More than any other subject, it informed Motherwell's work throughout the 1940s and 1950's in his Spanish Prisoner and Elegy series. According to the artist, works like Elegy to the Spanish Republic #71 are both specifically related to that conflict as well as a general meditation on tragedy.

Formally, Elegy to the Spanish Republic #71 comes out of the artist's earlier works that were dominated by the play of geometric forms. In terms of subject matter, they have often been seen in terms of power--politically, visually and sexually. The forms have been alternatively been interpreted as a male/female duality with the phallic verticals playing off the female ovoid shapes, as well as a metaphor for the sexual organ of a bull. Assertively frontal and flat, the ovoid are held up (or crushed) by the verticals, and also suggest a kind of abstracted architecture. They can also be viewed, as in his earlier works, as a completely abstract rhythm of loose geometry. Indeed, the Elegies resistance to any single interpretation is part of their strength.

In contrast to the stereotype of the Abstract Expressionist painter as inarticulate and brash, Motherwell was an intellectual, publishing some of the most compelling modern and contemporary art criticism of the Twentieth Century. His critical prowess at times has made him suspect in a movement that prides itself on raw, expressive emotion. Rather than seek to break as much with possible from the past, as say Jackson Pollock was attempting, Motherwell was well-schooled in modernism and saw his work as part of the art historical dialogue, particularly with Matisse. Like Matisse, Motherwell's work always has an underlying elegance and a delicate balance, no matter how raw and powerful the gesture.

Like the Abstract Expressionist Franz Kline, Motherwell's signature works are large-scale black and white paintings, in which the artist will often paint the white passages last. Although seemingly spontaneous, Motherwell labored over the forms in Elegy to the Spanish Republic #71 looking for just the proportions and color saturations, as can be most clearly seen in the heavily worked black ovoids. In extant photos of the work prior to completion, the ovoid at the right was more open and contained a hollow white component and throughout the painting were expressive black splatters. In the final state, Motherwell created a much more resolved composition, focusing more on the tension between the forms and less on painterliness.

As much as any artist, Motherwell's oeuvre is so completely associated with a single image, the Spanish Elegy, that it is surprising for most to discover the relatively few large-scale paintings that the artist executed on the theme. With most of them in public collections, the offering of a major, vintage Elegy from 1961 is a rare event. The present lot was gifted to the Yale University Art Gallery, who are de-accessioning it due to a redundancy in the collection. Originally in the exceptional collection of Gifford Phillips, it was acquired directly from Sidney Janis in the 1960s, where it was exhibited in a one person show in 1962. It is only the third large-scale Elegy from the 1950s/1960s to come to auction in the last thirty-two years (source: Artauctionresults.com).

The present work in the next-to-last state, 1961

Robert Motherwell's studio wall, Spring 1960 Photograph by Peter A. Juley & Son, New York

Installation view of Motherwell's exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1965 Photograph by Renate Ponsold Motherwell, Greenwich