“Art Historian Greg Gilbert: Robert Motherwell" at the Figge Art Museum -- February 12.
Thursday, February 12, 6 p.m.
Figge Art Museum, 225 West Second Street, Davenport IA
Detailing the life and works of the abstract expressionist painter and printmaker, Knox College's Dr. Greg Gilbert – who earned his 1998 Ph.D. in Art History from Rutgers University – will deliver a presentation on Robert Motherwell at Davenport's Figge Art Museum, the February 12 event exploring one of the youngest of the New York School of Artists which also included Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko.
Motherwell was born in Aberdeen, Washington on January 24, 1915, the first child of Robert Burns Motherwell II and Margaret Hogan Motherwell. The family later moved to San Francisco, where Motherwell's father served as president of Wells Fargo Bank, but returned to Cohasset Beach, Washington, every summer during his youth. Another Aberdeen native with a home at Cohasset Beach was Lance Wood Hart, painter and art teacher, who became Motherwell's early mentor. Due to the artist's asthmatic condition, Motherwell was reared largely on the Pacific Coast and spent most of his school years in California. There he developed a love for the broad spaces and bright colours that later emerged as essential characteristics of his abstract paintings (ultramarine blue of the sky and yellow ochre of Californian hills). His later concern with themes of mortality can likewise be traced to his frail health as a child.
In 1940, Motherwell moved to New York to study at Columbia University, where he was encouraged by Meyer Schapiro to devote himself to painting rather than scholarship. Schapiro introduced the young artist to a group of exiled Parisian Surrealists (Max Ernst, Duchamp, Masson) and arranged for Motherwell to study with Kurt Seligmann. The time that Motherwell spent with the Surrealists proved to be influential to his artistic process. After a 1941 voyage with Roberto Matta to Mexico—on a boat where he met Maria Emilia Ferreira y Moyeros, an actress and his future wife—Motherwell decided to make painting his primary vocation. The sketches Motherwell made in Mexico later evolved into his first important paintings, such as The Little Spanish Prison and Pancho Villa, Dead and Alive.
In 1948, Motherwell, William Baziotes, Barnett Newman, David Hare, and Mark Rothko founded the Subjects of the Artist School at 35 East 8th Street. Well-attended lectures were open to the public with speakers such as Jean Arp, John Cage and Ad Reinhardt. The school failed financially and closed in the spring of 1949. Throughout the 1950s Motherwell taught painting at Hunter College in New York and at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. Cy Twombly, Robert Rauschenberg and Kenneth Noland studied under and were influenced by Motherwell. At this time, he was a prolific writer and lecturer, and in addition to directing the influential Documents of Modern Art Series, he edited The Dada Painters and Poets: An Anthology, which was published in 1951.
In his faculty biography at Knox.edu, Dr. Greg Gilbert states: "My specialized area of research is focused on modern and contemporary American art, specifically contextual and theoretical issues associated with Abstract Expressionism. I am particularly interested in studying the intersection of the movement with forms of mass visual culture, as well as its relation to trends in American literature and philosophical thought. Through this interdisciplinary sociocultural approach, I am hoping to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the postwar avant-garde in the United States."
Art Historian Greg Gilbert: Robert Motherwell will be presented in the Thursdays at the Figge series on February 12, with the Figge Bar open for food and beverages at 5 p.m. (cards only) and the program beginning at 6 p.m. Participation is free, and more information is available by calling (563)326-7804 and visiting FiggeArtMuseum.org.
