Ochre Open with Charcoal Dust (Primary Title)
Robert Motherwell, American, 1915 - 1991 (Artist)
"A door imprisons, whereas I seek the opposite: an opening into an airy, rising world." —Robert Motherwell Motherwell remains one of the best-known Abstract Expressionists, partly because of his scholarly writings articulating the movement’s aims. Over the course of his career, Motherwell painted three major series of paintings: Elegy to the Spanish Republic, Je t’aime, and Open. Each work in the Open series, which he began in the late 1960s, contains three lines forming a rectangularoutline, but the proportion of the shape and the colors often change dramatically among them, emphasizing the variety of expression available even within a limited range of compositional choices.
Signed, upper left corner: "R. Motherwell / 70"; and on reverse: "R. Motherwell, October 1970"
Labels on reverse.
Gift of the Dedalus Foundation, Inc. and museum purchase, John Barton Payne Fund
©artist or artist’s estate
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