Book

Motherwell, Robert.

The collected writings of Robert Motherwell / edited by Stephanie Terenzio.

New York : Oxford University Press, 1992.

xxvii, 325 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 27 cm

In the history of art, only a handful of great artists have been able to articulate the nature of the creative process. Robert Motherwell was one such artist. Not only a seminal painter in the movement eventually referred to as abstract expressionism, he was also a primary theorist and spokesperson for the avant-garde art that developed mainly in New York City during the Second World War. Throughout the formative years of abstract expressionism, Motherwell's presence as artist, editor of a series of pioneering books on modern art, lecturer, and teacher was influential in both illuminating and shaping the development of what he termed "The Enterprise" of abstract art. This book brings together a representative selection of Motherwell's writings about art, dating from 1941 to 1988. It contains more than sixteen essays, a number of pieces from exhibition catalogs, more than a dozen public lectures, and all the artist's vanguard editorial work. The last includes his introductions to several volumes of the pioneering series Documents of Modern Art, which he began directing and editing in 1944; his contribution to possibilities, the first magazine devoted to modern art and culture in the United States, and his work on Modern Artists in America, a book designed to bring balanced attention to modern art in the conservative political climate that prevailed in 1951. Excerpts from four interviews, a number of letters, and lectures, some never before published, bring the collection to within three years of the artist's death. A new chronology and an updated bibliography provide much new information. In a New York Times tribute shortly after Motherwell's death, Hilton Kramer memorialized the artist as the "eloquent and articulate champion of the entire Abstract Expressionist movement, an archivist of the modernist movement as a whole" and expressed regret that Motherwell's "long-awaited" collected works had not yet appeared. Here at last is that definitive collection, nearly eighty pieces by the leading spokesperson for abstract expressionism.

Motherwell, Robert -- Philosophy.

Art.

Art, Modern -- 20th century.

Art.

Terenzio, Stephanie.

Works. Selections. 1992

Includes bibliographical references (pages 301-325).

1941-1949. Letter to William Carlos Williams; "Notes on Mondrian and Chirico"; "Painters' objects"; "The modern painter's world"; "Beyond the Aesthetic"; Statement in Fourteen Americans; Letter to Samuel Kootz; Statement in Motherwell; Letter to Christian Zervos; Editorial preface to Possibilities 1; Prefatory note to Max Ernst: Beyond painting and other writings by the artist and his friends; Prefatory note to Jean (Hans) Arp, On my way: poetry and essays 1912-1947; "A tour of the sublime"; Preliminary notice to Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, The rise of cubism; "A personal expression"; Preliminary notice to Guillaume Apollinaire, The cubist painters: Aesthetic meditations 1913; "Reflections on painting now"; Preliminary notice to Marcel Raymond, From Baudelaire to Surrealism.

1950-1959. "Black or white"; Preface to Georges Duthuit, The Fauvist painters; "The New York school"; Preface ["The school of New York"] to Seventeen modern American painters; "What abstract art means to me"; "The rise and continuity of abstract art"; Preface to The Dada painters and poets: an anthology; A statement and an introduction to the illustrations in Modern artists in America: first series; Final page of letter to unknown party; "Symbolism"; "The painter and the audience"; "A painting must make human contact"; Letter to John; Notes in John I.H. Bauer, Bradley Walker Tomlin; "The significance of Miró"; Lecture with Charles R. Hulbeck; Occasional pieces.

1960-1969. "What should a museum be?"; "Homage to Franz Kline"; "Robert Motherwell: a conversation at lunch"; "A process of painting"; Interview with Bryan Robertson, addenda; "Letter from Robert Motherwell to Frank O'Hara, dated August 18, 1965; Interview with Sidney Simon: "Concerning the beginnings of the New York School: 1939-1943"; Letters to Emerson Woelffer; "Addenda to the Museum of Modern Art Lyric suite questionnaire--from memory ... with possible chronological slips."

1970-1979. "On the humanism of abstraction"; Letter to Irving Sandler; Testimony before the Select Subcommittee on Education; "The universal language of children's art, and Modernism"; "Thoughts on drawing"; On Rothko; On David Smith; Introduction to Pierre Cabanne, Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp; "The books's beginnings"; Interview with Richard Wagener; Letter to Lynda Hartigan; "Provincetown and Days Lumberyard: a memoir"; "A conversation with students"; Two letters on Surrealism; "The international world of Modernist Art: 1945-1960.

1980-1988. Letter to Ive-Alain Bois; Letter to Guy Scarpetta; "In memoriam: Anthony Smith"; Letter to Virginia Dorazio; Letter to Bruce Grenville; Letter to Ann Louise Coffin McLaughlin; Foreword to William C. Seitz, Abstract Expressionist painting in America; "Remarks"; "Kafka's visual recoil: a note"; "A collage for Nathan Halper in nine parts"; Letter to Glen MacLeod; Letter to Jack Beatty; Letter to Christian Leprette; "Animating rhythm"; "On not becoming an academic"; "Introduction for Octavio Paz"; Interview with David Hayman; Letter to Ted Lindberg.

Table of contents

Contributor biographical information

Publisher description

92013639

0195077008

9780195077001

0195090470

9780195090475

25747805

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709.04 Motherwe