2 Robert Motherwell Prints at Gregg Shienbaum Fine Art

1915-1991

Robert Motherwell: Painter, Writer and Prolific Printmaker

Robert Motherwell (1915-1991), born in Aberdeen, Washington, was the youngest of the original Abstract Expressionists and its most intellectual voice. He studied philosophy and aesthetics before turning to painting, and he edited The Dada Painters and Poets (1951), a landmark anthology. His work draws on Surrealist automatism, French poetry and a deep feeling for the politics and tragedy of the 20th century. Robert Motherwell prints carry that mix of gesture, restraint and emotion into some of the most important American editions of the postwar period.

Signature Themes in Motherwell’s Prints

• Elegies to the Spanish Republic: the black ovoid and bar forms he began in 1948 and revisited for decades, a meditation on death and loss, and the subject most closely linked to his name
• The Open series: begun in the late 1960s, with a simple rectangle or open field of colour that frames empty space
• Collage and Gauloises: torn paper, printed ephemera and cigarette-pack imagery, a nod to his love of France
• Poetry and illustrated books: his work with poets and writers, including Mallarmé, Rafael Alberti and Octavio Paz
• Automatism and calligraphic line: spontaneous, rhythmic mark-making that shows his Surrealist roots

• Publishers and Workshops

  Motherwell worked with leading print workshops and publishers, including Tyler Graphics, Gemini G.E.L. and Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE), as well as Parisian and other American studios. The publisher, printer and workshop are essential to authentication and valuation, so record them for each print you list.

• Why Motherwell’s Prints Matter

  Motherwell’s prints show Abstract Expressionism’s emotional weight at a scale collectors can live with. They are held in major museum collections worldwide, and they offer an accessible route into an artist whose paintings are central to the New York School.

Read the Blog: Robert Motherwell Prints Over The Decades.