Motherwell, Robert, 1915–91, American painter and writer, b. Aberdeen, Wash. Motherwell taught art at several colleges and during the early 1940s he became a cogent theoretician of abstract expressionism abstract expressionism, movement of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the mid-1940s and attained singular prominence in American art in the following decade; also called action painting and the New York school.
..... Click the link for more information. . His canvases are characterized by large, amorphous shapes, painted in strong, austere colors. His most famous body of work is a series of over 100 paintings entitled Elegy for the Spanish Republic (1948–90). He also created numerous masterful collages and more than 500 editions of prints. He was married for several years to the painter Helen Frankenthaler Frankenthaler, Helen (frăngk`ənthŏlər), 1928–, American painter, b. New York City.
..... Click the link for more information. . Motherwell edited Documents of Modern Art (15 vol., 1944–61), Modern Artists in America (1952), The Dada Painters and Poets (1951), and Documents of 20th-Century Art (1971–80). His keen critical powers and abundant intellectual gifts are evident in his many essays, brought together in The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell (1993).
(born Jan. 24, 1915, Aberdeen, Wash., U.S.—died July 16, 1991, Provincetown, Mass.) U.S. painter, writer, and teacher. He received an art scholarship at 11, but he earned degrees from Stanford and Harvard before deciding to become a serious painter. He espoused Abstract Expressionism from the beginning of his career, and his erudite writings were largely responsible for the intellectual tone of the movement. In his Elegy to the Spanish Republic painting series, begun in 1949 and continued over three decades, he developed a limited repertory of simple, serene black forms that were applied to the picture plane in a way that created a sense of slow, solemn movement. Though he worked in various styles, his reputation rests on his pioneering work as a founder and principal exponent of Abstract Expressionism.
Motherwell, Robert (1915–91) painter; born in Aberdeen, Wash. He studied at the California School of Fine Arts, San Francisco (1932), majored in philosophy at Stanford University (1932–36) and Harvard (1937–38), and worked under Meyer Schapiro at Columbia University (1940–41). He was based in New York City, and his first paintings were influenced by Piet Mondrian, as in Spanish Picture with Window (1942). By 1948 he began his black and white oils, Elegies to the Spanish Republic (1948–68). A later series, Open (1968–75), is based on an exploration of windows and walls. His reputation as a theorist and painter within the astract expressionist school continues to grow.
..... Click the link for more information. . His canvases are characterized by large, amorphous shapes, painted in strong, austere colors. His most famous body of work is a series of over 100 paintings entitled Elegy for the Spanish Republic (1948–90). He also created numerous masterful collages and more than 500 editions of prints. He was married for several years to the painter Helen Frankenthaler Frankenthaler, Helen (frăngk`ənthŏlər), 1928–, American painter, b. New York City.
..... Click the link for more information. . Motherwell edited Documents of Modern Art (15 vol., 1944–61), Modern Artists in America (1952), The Dada Painters and Poets (1951), and Documents of 20th-Century Art (1971–80). His keen critical powers and abundant intellectual gifts are evident in his many essays, brought together in The Collected Writings of Robert Motherwell (1993).
Bibliography
See biographies by H. H. Arnason and S. P. Breckinridge (1982), D. Ashton and J. Flam (1983), and R. S. Mattison (1989); S. Engberg, Robert Motherwell: The Complete Prints 1940–1991 (2004).
Motherwell, Robert
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Motherwell, photograph by Arnold Newman, 1959
(credit: © Arnold Newman)
Motherwell, Robert (1915–91) painter; born in Aberdeen, Wash. He studied at the California School of Fine Arts, San Francisco (1932), majored in philosophy at Stanford University (1932–36) and Harvard (1937–38), and worked under Meyer Schapiro at Columbia University (1940–41). He was based in New York City, and his first paintings were influenced by Piet Mondrian, as in Spanish Picture with Window (1942). By 1948 he began his black and white oils, Elegies to the Spanish Republic (1948–68). A later series, Open (1968–75), is based on an exploration of windows and walls. His reputation as a theorist and painter within the astract expressionist school continues to grow.
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