Robert Motherwell

M. Knoedler & Co., Inc., New York
Collection of Douglas S. Cramer (acquired from the above in February 1981)

Provincetown, Long Point Gallery, Motherwell, September 1979
Barcelona, Centre Cultural de la Caixa de Pensions, Fundacion Juan March, Motherwell, February - April 1980, cat. no. 22, n.p., illustrated
Buffalo, Albright-Knox Art Gallery; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; San Fransisco Museum of Modern Art; Seattle Art Museum; Washington, D.C., Corcoran Gallery of Art; New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Robert Motherwell, October 1983 - February 1985, cat. no. 83, p. 113, illustrated in color

H.H. Arnason, Robert Motherwell, 2nd edition, New York, 1982, pl. no. 307, p. 220, illustrated in color (in the artist's studio)
Fidel Danieli, "Robert Motherwell and His Critics," ArtWeek, February 18, 1984, vol. 15, no. 7, n.p., illustrated
Helen Duffy, "Robert Motherwell: Art Charged with Feeling," Vie Des Arts, March - May 1984, vol. XXVIII, no. 114, p. 59 and 92, illustrated
Dorothy Burkhart, "Motherwell: Elegance is his Signature," Mercury News, April 20, 1984, p. 1D, illustrated
Regina Hackett, "Motherwell Exhibit is a Celebration in Paint," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Thursday, June 21, 1984, p. C11, illustrated
Marcelin Pleynet, Robert Motherwell, Paris, 1989, illustrated in color on the cover and p. 157, illustrated in color
Katherine Manthrone, "Robert Motherwell in Mexico," Latin American Art 2, Fall 1990, p. 69, illustrated
Jack Flam, Motherwell, New York, 1991, no. 127, n.p., illustrated in color

This work is in very good condition. There is a stable drying crack located 3 ¾ in. from the left and 19 - 19 ½ in. from the bottom. Very minor dust residue appears on the thick passages of black pigment. There are no apparent condition issues with this work and no apparent restoration is visible under UV light. Framed in gilt wood. The paint surface is stable and the colors are fresh and bright. The areas of white are pristine and the red is much more vibrant than it appears in the catalogue illustration.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

The continual presence of sudden death in Mexico... The presence everywhere of death iconography: coffins, black glass-encased horse drawn hearses, sigao skulls, figures of death, priests in glass cases, lurid popular wood-cuts...all of this contrasted with bright sunlight, white garbed peasants, blue skies, orange trees and everything you associate with life - all this seized upon my imagination.  For years afterwards, splattered blood appeared in my pictures - red paint.
- Robert Motherwell, 1964

Mexico long played an important role in Robert Motherwell's life. In the summer of 1941, taking a hiatus from his academic career and focus on Philosophy and Art History, he embarked on a trip to Mexico with Matta Echurran and on the boat met the Mexican woman who would shortly become his first wife, Maria Emilia Ferreira y Moyers.  Seven months later, Motherwell returned to New York City, firmly committed to abandoning his academic career and turning full time to painting.  Echoes from his exposure and love of Mexico would continue to reverberate in Motherwell's work throughout his career.  Mexican Nights, 1979, is a wildly beautiful canvas that fully embodies the passions of Motherwell's Mexico while stylistically marking a development from the Open series, enhanced by his collage work and informed by the Drunk with Turpentine series.

Motherwell's early exposure to European Surrealists, in particular, Matta, Duchamp and Max Ernst, would come to impart in his work the Surrealist theories of automatism.  Throughout his wide and varied oeuvre, Motherwell developed an intense physicality derived from his adherence to automatic painting and his openness to bouts of inspiration from which entire series were derived.  In fact, in 1967 Motherwell's Open series originated in an accident, one painting leaning against another in a crowded studio, forming an interesting spacial relationship between the rectangles of varying size.  Spurred on by this random occurrence, Motherwell describes "I picked up a piece of charcoal and just outlined the smaller canvas on the larger one... it occurred to me that it didn't really need imagery, that it was a picture in itself, a lovely painted surface plane, beautifully, if minimally, divided, which is what drawing is." (Jack Flam, Motherwell, New York, 1991, p.26)  Motherwell began to experiment with the use of thin black lines to divide monotone fields of color, the line worked as a framing device and dominated the Open series, though, as the series evolved, the brushwork of the ground became more prominent and expressive, more fully atmospheric.  The highly economic Open series was an experiment in unifying disparate elements into harmonious compositions and using line to establish structure and spatial movement.

This dichotomy between geometry and organic forms was pushed even further in Motherwell's experimentation with collage.  Motherwell had been using collage from the 1940s, an extension of painting and very much attached to the Surrealist notion of automatism and 'controlled chance'.  During the 1970s, Motherwell's involvement with collage greatly expanded as he continually experimented with new modes of composition, spurred forward by the new ideas of organization birthed from the Open series.  Using collage, Motherwell was rapidly able to form new methods of spatial structure and color relationships, claiming that he feels "happiest when, during the creative process, I simply let work 'pour out', so to speak, without critical intervention or editing" (H.H. Arnason, Robert Motherwell, New York, 1982, p. 221).  The jagged black lines and the nebulous edges of the red paint in Mexican Nights echo Motherwell's exploration of atmospheric depth through his work with collage - the use of layers and layers of paper and paint, imbuing his works with a jewel-like quality.  The highly collage like feel of the work is broken only by the lively sprays of color bursting forth from the highly expressive black lines.  The movement and energy infused by these painterly splotches brings to mind his series Drunk with Turpentine also of 1979.  In this series, Motherwell used profuse amounts of turpentine to thin his oil paints, allowing wild and uncontrolled movement from the paint, applied in grand calligraphic gestures onto paper.

The influence of the Open series and his collage work of the early 70s are keenly felt in the basic organization of Mexican Nights and its interaction of bold blocks of color.  Architectural elements had always been present in his work as key components of planar delineation. Commenting on his inspired use of architectonic forms, of Mexico in particular, Motherwell said: "My work is generated ...by planar color and value... The Open series was generated in part by these feelings.  In Mexico, in the old days, they built the four walls of the house solid, without windows or doors, and later cut the windows and doors beautifully proportioned, out of the solid adobe wall.  There is something in me that responds to that, to the stark beauty of dividing a solid plane." (Flam, op. cit., p.11)    The strong black lines of Mexican Night are reminiscent of Mexican adobe architecture and are used as stabilizing elements, seeming to hold at bay the field of spilling red paint creating a brilliant tension in the canvas, filling the picture plane with raw energy and passion, perhaps referencing the duality of life and death which Motherwell so strongly associated with Mexico.  The convergence of power of line derived from the Open series, organization perfected by collage, and expressive brushwork of Drunk with Turpentine come together in wonderful chaotic harmony in Mexican Night to create a masterful work that fully captures the passions of Motherwell.