Robert Motherwell
Robert Motherwell, The Basque Suite, Nos. 1-10, 1970, screenprints on rag paper, each 41 x 28 1/2 in. / 104.1 x 71.7 cm. © Dedalus Foundation/VAGA, New York.
Press Release
The Directors of Marlborough New York are pleased to present Robert Motherwell: Prints, an exhibition which will present a selection of graphic works by the pioneering American Abstract Expressionist. The exhibition will open on Tuesday, September 21, 2021, and remain on view through Friday, November 12, 2021.
Although known primarily for his innovations in painting, drawing, and collage, Robert Motherwell (1915-1991) also produced a substantial body of work as a printmaker, having studied etching in the New York workshop of the renowned Swiss Surrealist artist Kurt Seligmann as early as 1940. Throughout the next three decades, Motherwell would experiment with different techniques, working alongside various printmakers in workshops large and small. “I had always loved working on paper,” Motherwell said, “but it was the camaraderie of the artist-printer relationship that tilted the scale indefinitely.” All of the works on view were published by Marlborough Graphics, Inc., in the years preceding the establishment of Motherwell’s own etching and lithography press at his studio in Greenwich, Connecticut in 1973.
On view will be three complete series of color screenprints by Motherwell: The Basque Suite (1970), London Series I (1971), and London Series II (1971). The Basque Suite incorporates starkly contrasting colors and gesturally rendered geometric forms, variously reminiscent of his Summertime in Italy series of paintings from the early sixties, while the London Series adopts the austere linear formal motif most often associated with his iconic Open paintings.