.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Robert Motherwell's earliest experiments in the graphic arts reflect an abiding interest in the expressive potential of black and white. His involvement with printmaking began in 1943 at Stanley William Hayter’s Atelier 17, but it continued only sporadically until 1965, when he worked in collaboration with the printer Irwin Hollander. Automatism A (cat. no. 156) from this productive period exploits the fluid properties of lithographic wash. Forceful brushstrokes and gestural splashes evoke the same sense of spontaneity and chance occurrence so crucial to many of his Abstract Expressionist canvases.
In marked contrast to these aggressively gestural works, Red Open with White Line is a luminous field of color interrupted only by the subtle etched rectangle that hangs trapeze-like from the print’s upper edge. Deeply bitten aquatint printed on the rough-textured surface of handmade paper results in intense saturation of hue and a richly modulated field of color. The minimalist restraint and classical serenity of the image derive from Motherwell’s “Open” series of paintings begun in 1967. The print Red Open with White Line grew more specifically out of his aquatint illustrations to the Spanish poet Rafael Alberti’s poem about painting A la Pintura, published in 1972.
The rectangle within a rectangle, the recur- rent theme of the "Opens," suggests a window in a wall. There is an expansive quality to the field of red color, which bleeds to the edge in three directions, arrested only by the white margin of paper at the left (the “white line” of the title).
Nancy Spector, The Modern Art of the Print: Selections from the Collection of Lois and Michael Torf, p. 118
In marked contrast to these aggressively gestural works, Red Open with White Line is a luminous field of color interrupted only by the subtle etched rectangle that hangs trapeze-like from the print’s upper edge. Deeply bitten aquatint printed on the rough-textured surface of handmade paper results in intense saturation of hue and a richly modulated field of color. The minimalist restraint and classical serenity of the image derive from Motherwell’s “Open” series of paintings begun in 1967. The print Red Open with White Line grew more specifically out of his aquatint illustrations to the Spanish poet Rafael Alberti’s poem about painting A la Pintura, published in 1972.
The rectangle within a rectangle, the recur- rent theme of the "Opens," suggests a window in a wall. There is an expansive quality to the field of red color, which bleeds to the edge in three directions, arrested only by the white margin of paper at the left (the “white line” of the title).
Nancy Spector, The Modern Art of the Print: Selections from the Collection of Lois and Michael Torf, p. 118