The art and rhetoric of Robert Motherwell helped define the New York School, a group of abstract painters active in the 1940s and 1950s that also included Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Willem de Kooning. With an extensive academic background, Motherwell acted as the movement’s unofficial spokesperson, writing and speaking about his generation of artists.
Influenced by surrealism and psychology, Motherwell employed techniques designed to release the artistic process from rational control and express the subconscious, as seen, for example, in his Lyric Suite drawings. His art explored themes both intimate, such as a series of collages incorporating personal items like cigarette packets and pieces of mail, and international, like Elegy to the Spanish Republic, a subject he reworked in various formats throughout his life.
Robert Motherwell: An Attitude Toward Reality, From the Collection of the Walker Art Center offers an overview and introduction to the artist, spanning more than four decades of his career with more than 40 drawings, collages, prints, and paintings. The exhibition is organized by the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.
