"The Aberdeen Stone, 1971"
Robert Motherwell
SUSAN SHEEHAN GALLERY
136 East 16th Street New York, NY 10003
Tel 212 489-3331 Fax 212 489-4009 e-mail:
January, 2021
Robert Motherwell (1915-1991) was one of the youngest members of the New York School of Abstract Expressionists. He is perhaps best known as a painter, but also worked as an editor over the course of his 50-year career in the art world, during which he also produced more than 500 print editions.
Motherwell created his first prints in 1943, but it wasn't until the late 1960s that he became seriously interested in printmaking as a medium through which he could investigate the ideas he was exploring in paint. Motherwell's prints from the 1960s and early 1970s reveal how he used printmaking to experiment with the motifs for which he is now best known in innovative ways. For example, many of his works from this period, variably named after waves and the ocean, call to mind his paintings based on the crashing waves he observed from his home and studio in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
In 1967, inspiration struck when Motherwell noticed a small painting in his studio leaning against a larger one. The arrangement of the shapes—one rectangle inside another—called to the artist's mind the doors and windows of adobe houses he had seen on a trip to Mexico in the 1940s. Thus began Motherwell's two-decade examination of painting subtly nested rectangular forms, known as his Open series. The Open works are characterized by a sense of balance between the shapes, but also between the artist's geometric lines and varied, expressive brushstrokes. For example, the earliest Open works feature three thin lines cutting starkly through the field of color to form an angular horseshoe shape.
Although not titled as part of the Open series, The Aberdeen Stone—named for his birthplace in Aberdeen, Washington—undeniably represents an early example of Motherwell's experimentation with these motifs. The small, gray rectangle hovers meditatively over the larger blue form. The three thin lines—Motherwell's Open series signature—break up the gray, demonstrating the artist's mastery of the lithograph medium. Lithography enabled Motherwell to achieve large blocks of color layered cleanly on top of one another. Here, a third, black rectangle can be seen underneath the gray and blue. This experimental layering alludes to another key interest of Motherwell's: collage.
While many of his Open paintings are monochromatic, save for the three lines, The Aberdeen Sone uniquely shows how Motherwell played the forms of the Open series using multiple colors. This rare print, produced in an edition of just 10, situates Motherwell firmly in his time, evoking both minimalism and color field painting, yet retaining the gestural energy characteristic of Abstract Expressionism.
Motherwell created his first prints in 1943, but it wasn't until the late 1960s that he became seriously interested in printmaking as a medium through which he could investigate the ideas he was exploring in paint. Motherwell's prints from the 1960s and early 1970s reveal how he used printmaking to experiment with the motifs for which he is now best known in innovative ways. For example, many of his works from this period, variably named after waves and the ocean, call to mind his paintings based on the crashing waves he observed from his home and studio in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
In 1967, inspiration struck when Motherwell noticed a small painting in his studio leaning against a larger one. The arrangement of the shapes—one rectangle inside another—called to the artist's mind the doors and windows of adobe houses he had seen on a trip to Mexico in the 1940s. Thus began Motherwell's two-decade examination of painting subtly nested rectangular forms, known as his Open series. The Open works are characterized by a sense of balance between the shapes, but also between the artist's geometric lines and varied, expressive brushstrokes. For example, the earliest Open works feature three thin lines cutting starkly through the field of color to form an angular horseshoe shape.
Although not titled as part of the Open series, The Aberdeen Stone—named for his birthplace in Aberdeen, Washington—undeniably represents an early example of Motherwell's experimentation with these motifs. The small, gray rectangle hovers meditatively over the larger blue form. The three thin lines—Motherwell's Open series signature—break up the gray, demonstrating the artist's mastery of the lithograph medium. Lithography enabled Motherwell to achieve large blocks of color layered cleanly on top of one another. Here, a third, black rectangle can be seen underneath the gray and blue. This experimental layering alludes to another key interest of Motherwell's: collage.
While many of his Open paintings are monochromatic, save for the three lines, The Aberdeen Sone uniquely shows how Motherwell played the forms of the Open series using multiple colors. This rare print, produced in an edition of just 10, situates Motherwell firmly in his time, evoking both minimalism and color field painting, yet retaining the gestural energy characteristic of Abstract Expressionism.
 | Robert Motherwell |
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