566 - Robert Motherwell* (Aberdeen 1915 - 1991 Provincetown)

Robert Motherwell* (Aberdeen 1915 - 1991 Provincetown) Tricolor, 1968 lithography/paper 31 x 22,5 cm signed R. Motherwell, numbered 20/25 monogrammed in the plate R.M., dated in the plate 29.3.68 VII SCHÄTZPREIS / ESTIMATE € 100 - 200 STARTPREIS / STARTING PRICE € 100 Robert Burns Motherwell was born on January 24, 1915, in Aberdeen, Washington, and grew up primarily in California. He studied philosophy and literature at Stanford University, graduating in 1937, and briefly continued his philosophical studies at Harvard University. In 1940, he moved to New York, where art historian Meyer Schapiro (at Columbia University) encouraged him to abandon an academic career in favor of painting. A trip to Mexico in 1941 with the Chilean surrealist Roberto Matta marked a decisive turning point. Motherwell began creating automatic drawings and developed a style of painting that combined spontaneous gestures, collage, fragments of text, and intense contrasts. In 1942, he joined the circle surrounding Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, and William Baziotes—a group that would later become known as the New York School, or Abstract Expressionism. By 1944, he had already held his first solo exhibition at Peggy Guggenheim’s gallery, Art of This Century. In 1947, Motherwell began the Elegy to the Spanish Republic series, a body of work that would occupy him for decades. These large-scale paintings—featuring black oval and vertical forms set against a light background—are not illustrations of the Spanish Civil War but rather universal visual symbols representing tragedy, loss, violence, and resistance. The series ranks among the most significant achievements of American postwar painting. Motherwell was also a key figure as a communicator and writer: he edited the Documents of Modern Art series, co-founded the "Subjects of the Artist" school in 1948 with Baziotes, Rothko, and Barnett Newman, and published writings on modernism. He continued to work in painting, collage, and printmaking throughout his life. He died on July 16, 1991, in Provincetown. PLEASE NOTE: The purchase price consists of the highest bid plus the buyer's premium, sales tax and, if applicable, the fee of artists resale rights and platform fee. In the case of normal taxation (marked ° at the estimate), a premium of 24% is added to the highest bid. The mandatory sales tax is added to the sum of the highest bid, the buyer's premium and platform fee. This amounts to 13% for paintings, drawings, graphic works and sculptures and 20% for photographs and all other items. The buyer's premium amounts to 28% in case of differential taxation. The sales tax is included in the differential taxation.