Robert Motherwell
Arts & Music • Historical Archive • 🇺🇸 United States • 3 views

Robert Motherwell 🇺🇸

Robert Motherwell
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Born Jan 24, 1915 🇺🇸 Aberdeen, United States
Passed Away Jul 16, 1991 Provincetown, United States
Lifespan 76 years old
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Notice / Correction
"Art is an experience, not an object... Painting is a state of being."

Archival Overview

American painter, printmaker, and intellectual leader of Abstract Expressionism, world-renowned for his monumental series 'Elegies to the Spanish Republic' and mastery of collage.

Biographical Record

Educated in philosophy at Stanford and Harvard, Robert Motherwell served as the most articulate intellectual and theoretical spokesman of the New York School. Encouraged by Roberto Matta and Meyer Schapiro, he embraced psychic automatism, using gestural ink drawing as a direct portal to the subconscious mind.

Beginning in 1948, Motherwell embarked on his magnum opus: over 150 monumental paintings entitled 'Elegies to the Spanish Republic.' These works deployed rhythmic, brooding black ovoids compressed between vertical pillars against stark white grounds as universal laments for human freedom and tragic mortality.

Key Life Milestones

1948

Elegies to the Spanish Republic

Began his defining serial monument lamenting the tragedy of the Spanish Civil War.

1965

MoMA Solo Retrospective

Awarded a major career retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

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Final Resting Place

Perpetual Memorial
Memorial Location
Provincetown, United States
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