Robert Motherwell
(1915–)
(–1991)
Robert Motherwell
1915–1991
Robert Motherwell (1915–1991) was an American abstract expressionist painter, printmaker, writer, and editor. He was a member of the New York School, along with Phillip Guston, Mark Rothko, and Jackson Pollock.
Between 1932-1937, Motherwell trained at the California School of Arts, San Francisco and also received a BA in philosophy from Stanford. Motherwell briefly studied philosophy at Harvard, however, he was encouraged to go to Columbia in New York to study under art historian Meyer Shapiro.
In 1941, he met Roberto Matta amongst other European artists associated with Surrealism in New York. Matta introduced him to “Automatism” or automatic drawing, which greatly influenced Motherwell’s practice. In the early 1940s, Motherwell had a large role in establishing the new movement of abstract expressionism, the New School, and was well known as one of its most well-spoken members. Motherwell worked as a writer and editor, his most influential text being "The Dada Painters and Poets: An Anthology" (New York, 1951). Throughout the 1950s, Motherwell taught painting at the Hunter College in New York and the Black Mountain College in California. Motherwell was married to abstract expressionist, colour field painter Helen Frankenthaler from 1958-1971.
From 1968 to 1971, Motherwell worked on a series of paintings called “Open,” which reflected the new style of colour field painting. Motherwell has been exhibited widely, including notable appearances in Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century gallery, The Museum of Modern Art, New York (1965), and the Royal Academy of Fine Art (1978) among numerous others.