Artwork
Untitled
Untitled is an oil drawing by Robert Mothé. It dates from 1943 and is held in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art.
About this work
Overview
Created in 1943, this untitled work by Robert Motherwell combines collage and painting on a board, integrating printed and hand‑colored papers, a wood veneer, gouache, oil and ink. The composition presents two elongated, head‑shaped silhouettes with stark, featureless faces and limbs rendered in thin black lines, set against contrasting zones of muted tone and vigorous red‑black splatter.
Subject & Meaning
The piece juxtaposes a calm, lightly toned side with a dynamic, splattered counterpart, suggesting a dialogue between restraint and impulsive gesture. The empty, rounded heads and skeletal limbs function as abstracted human forms, inviting contemplation of presence and absence without depicting specific narratives, a strategy aligned with Motherwell’s interest in symbolic abstraction.
Technique & Style
Motherwell assembled the work through a process of tearing, layering, and adhering varied materials, creating a tactile surface where smooth paper meets the grain of wood and the fluidity of paint. The gestural application of gouache, oil and ink produces spontaneous marks that echo the broader abstract expressionist emphasis on immediacy and physicality.
History & Provenance
The drawing entered the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, where it remains part of the institution’s holdings of mid‑twentieth‑century American abstraction. Motherwell, a philosopher‑trained artist and former editor of a Dada anthology, produced the work during his early involvement with the New York School, reflecting his intellectual approach to the emerging abstract expressionist movement.
Artist & collection
Artist
Robert Motherwell (January 24, 1915 – July 16, 1991) was an American abstract expressionist painter, printmaker, and editor of The Dada Painters and Poets: an Anthology.
