Robert Motherwell's Literary Influences Revealed in New Exhibition

The New York Public Library will open an exhibition of a selection of Robert Motherwell’s prints from the 1960s to 1991, alongside annotated books from his private library on March 22.

In addition to painting, Motherwell was a prolific printmaker, referring to paper as “the most sympathetic of all painting surfaces.” Robert Motherwell: At Home and in the Studio, comprised of 24 prints gifted from the Dedalus Foundation, 14 volumes from his private library gifted from the family, and video clips of Motherwell working in his Greenwich, Connecticut studio, offers an intimate glimpse into Motherwell’s passion for both prints and the printed word. Volumes on display include James Joyce’s Ulysses and a heavily annotated copy of Otto Rank’s Art & Artist.

Taken together, the prints and books illuminate how Motherwell’s literary influences helped inspire his artistic process and signature style. The prints and titles on display were gifted to The New York Public Library by the artist’s family and the Dedalus Foundation which Motherwell established in 1981 to enhance the public understanding and appreciation of modern art and the principles of Modernism. 

“The prints and books in this gift reflect the broad range of Motherwell’s interests,” said Katy Rogers, President of the Dedalus Foundation, “and show how intensely he was engaged with both art and literature, which informed his creation of one of the most varied, complex, and vital bodies of work in modern art.”

Raised on the West Coast, Motherwell (1915-1991) studied literature and philosophy at Stanford  University where he cultivated a lifelong admiration of Joyce, Federico García Lorca, Stéphane Mallarmé, and Octavio Paz. It wasn’t until he moved to New York in 1940, where he was introduced to Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp, and other European artists in exile, that he devoted himself to his art practice, developing what would later become his signature pictorial language. His style and creative approach helped inaugurate a new art movement – Abstract Expressionism – and continues to influence artists today.  
“Motherwell was unique among his artworld contemporaries in that he was also an editor, critic, writer, and teacher. This exhibition heralds him as a prolific reader alongside the trajectory of his printmaking process,” said Clare Bell, Associate Director of the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints, and Photographs at the New York Public Library. 

The exhibition runs through August 2.