Robert Motherwell (1915-1991) was a major figure in American painting throughout his life. He studied art history with Meyer Shapiro at Columbia University, New York in 1939, and had his first solo exhibition in 1944 at Peggy Guggenheim’s Art of This Century Gallery. In the late 1940s, he befriended Mark Rothko and, together with Adolph Gottlieb, they founded the Subjects of the Artists School in New York in 1948. Although short lived, the school was influential. During the late 1940s and 50s, Motherwell taught at Black Mountain College and then Hunter College, New York. He edited the Documents of Modern Art series and Possibilities magazine in the mid at late 1940s and The Dada Painters and Poets: An Anthology, in 1951. He also co-authorized Modern Artists in America with Ad Reinhardt in 1951. Motherwell returned to painting in the late 1950s. In 1968, Motherwell began an extended series of color field paintings in response to the work being done by other artists.

Cabaret No. 2

1974
Collage on paper with hand additions in graphic and tempera
22 x 10 1/2 inches

Beside the Sea

1962
Oil and collage on paper
29 x 23 inches