Robert Motherwell’s pictorial language results from a working process that ranges from the spontaneous creation of calligraphic signs to very dense and clearly set compositions. The Wedding, with its two black figures standing on ochre ground, is a characteristic example of his colour palette.
Robert Motherwell’s career was greatly influenced by his relationship with Helen Frankenthaler, whom he met during a trip to Europe in 1956. They got married in 1958, the same year he created The Wedding. The couple eventually divorced in 1971. In this work from the Reinhard Ernst collection, Robert Motherwell reflects on his marriage to the artist while offering an insight into the cooperative artistic relationship they enjoyed for over a decade.
Robert Motherwell (1915–1991)
The Wedding, 1958
Currently exhibited: Yes (Gallery: Lines against Limits)
Material: Acrylic paint (Magna) on canvas
Size: 177.1 x 193 cm
Inv-Nr.: B_261
Image rights: VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Keywords:
Previous owner: Joseph H. Hirschhorn, 1959; Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D. C., 1966; Knoedler & Company, New York, 1981; Jean Albano Contemporary Art, Chicago; private collection, 1987
Acquisition: Reinhard Ernst Collection, Christie’s, New York, 2012
Group exhibitions:
1962
‘Vanguard American Painting’, Galerie Würthle, Vienna, Austria; Galerie Zwerglgarten, Salzburg, Austria; American Embassy London; USIS Gallery;
1959
‘8 American Painters’, Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, USA
Robert Motherwell studied philosophy, French literature, painting and eventually art history. In the early 1940s, at the urging of his mentor in art history, Meyer Schapiro, he devoted himself entirely to painting. His first exhibition in Paris in 1938 was followed by another solo show at Peggy Guggenheim’s New York gallery in 1944, which resulted in a purchase by the Museum of Modern Art. His various teaching posts at Black Mountain College in North Carolina and Hunter College in New York and his work on Documents of Modern Art indicate his engagement with the theory of contemporary art. Inspired by Ad Reinhardt, Motherwell explored East Asian aesthetics and calligraphy.
The broad range of his visual language stems from a working process which extends from spontaneous creation of Zen-like calligraphic signs to carefully crafted and densely painted compositions. In 1982, the artist described how he let his hand take command while painting: ‘Then you begin to observe and look critically at the hand that you think doesn’t belong to you at all, but is someone else’s hand. I find that I make it bounce or jump a little more or it becomes more rhythmic […]. It becomes a kind of critical self-analysis of how your body works, how your body reacts to a flat surface. At that point, viscosity becomes so important. If the medium is thick and you want to work fast, it won’t move fast enough – it will be too sluggish. If the medium is too thin, it will drip and run. But if it’s just right, then my hand just flies and I don’t even have to think.’ [1]
Robert Motherwell’s career was also greatly influenced by his relationship with Helen Frankenthaler, whom he met during a trip to Europe in 1956. They got married in 1958, the same year he created The Wedding. The couple eventually divorced in 1971. In this work from the Reinhard Ernst collection, Robert Motherwell reflects on his marriage to the artist while offering an insight into the cooperative artistic relationship they enjoyed for over a decade.
[1] Robert Motherwell on 2.10.1982 in an interview with Jack Flam, quoted in: Jack Flam: Robert Motherwell, Recklinghausen 1992, p. 17.
