Paper, Ink, Aquatint

Robert Motherwell's "The Red and Black No.52" is an abstract collage that incorporates oil based etching ink, pasted papers, and aquatint on paper. The piece was created between the 1987-1988 and is signed on the lower right corner by the artist. It is beautifully displayed within an acrylic case that is stylish while also protecting the work. There is a subtle glare in the photograph due to the acrylic case/framing, but the piece in great condition. "The Red and Black" was featured in the Yale Catalogue, Raisonné 1941-1991, Volume 3 on page 369-370.

Robert Motherwell (January 24, 1915 – July 16, 1991) was an American artist and seminal Abstract Expressionist painter. Influenced by the automatic writing and drawing prescribed by the Surrealists, Motherwell’s practice was characterized by an intuitive approach to painting. He is perhaps best known for his iconic Elegy to the Spanish Republic series, which consists of 150 variants of black forms on white backgrounds. “Painting is a medium in which the mind can actualize itself; it is a medium of thought,” he once reflected. “Thus painting, like music, tends to become its own content.” Born on January 24, 1915 in Aberdeen, WA, he moved to New York to study at Columbia University with the art historian Meyer Schapiro. It was Schapiro encouragement that initially led Motherwell to start making paintings. During the early 1940s, he entered a milieu of young artists that included William Baziotes, Jackson Pollock, and Willem de Kooning. Motherwell later taught Cy Twombly and Robert Rauschenberg at the famed Black Mountain College. After returning to New York, he met the painter Helen Frankenthaler in 1957, whom he married three years later. During their 13 year marriage, the two artists’ mutual interest in the poetry of abstraction fueled one another’s work. Motherwell died on July 16, 1991 in Cape Cod, MA. Today, his works are held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Tate Modern in London, among others.

H 32.75 in. x W 26.125 in. x D 1.625 in.

H 32 in. x W 25 in.