The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth just announced that it will be hosting the “Robert Motherwell: Pure Painting” exhibition beginning June 4 and running through September 17. This exhibition marks the first in more than a quarter century to examine Motherwell’s work, which dates back to the 1960s. Today, the Modern holds more than seventy works by Motherwell in its permanent collection, in a variety of media ranging from paintings, collages, and prints, according to a press release.
The Modern’s relationship with Motherwell began in the 1960s and 1970s when the museum acquired twenty-seven of his works on paper in
various media. In the 1980s, former director E. A. Carmean Jr., a scholar of Motherwell’s work, expanded the collection to include eleven additional works, including an important large painting, “Stephen’s Iron Crown,” 1981. In the early summer of 1991, then-curator Dr. Marla Price visited Motherwell in his studio, and selected several works that formed the exhibition Robert Motherwell: The Open Door. The exhibition opened in February 1992, shortly after the artist’s death. At the invitation of the Dedalus Foundation (founded by Motherwell in 1981), in the early 1990s, Dr. Price traveled to New York to select seventeen important works to add to the Modern’s collection, followed by another sixteen works in 1999. Today, the Modern’s collection has a total of seventy-two works by Motherwell in its collection—a selection second only to that of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
The current exhibition is organized by guest curator Susan Davidson and features a selection of fifty-six works from throughout the artist’s career, including twelve paintings from the Modern’s collection. The exhibition and accompanying catalogue will offer new insights into Motherwell’s evolution as an artist and his impact on Modernism. Although he was equally proficient as a collagist, printmaker, and draftsman, it is Motherwell’s expansive sense of painting that this retrospective explores.
Beginning with the abstracted-figurative works that dominated Motherwell’s first decade of painting as he emerged in the New York art world of the early 1940s, this exhibition highlights the depth of his fifty-year career. The artist explored the nuances of abstraction in key series that defined his oeuvre, including “Elegies to the Spanish Republic”, “Je t'aime”, and “Open”. He frequently invoked political subject matter and humanitarian themes, making his work especially relevant to audiences today. This exhibition offers a careful and thorough new reading of the artist’s development, revealing his fundamental desire to depict the unseen.
This exhibit will travel to Kunstforum Vienna and be on view from October 13, 2023 to January 14, 2024.
General Admission Prices (includes special exhibition)
$16: General (age 18 and above)
$12: Seniors (age 60+), Active/Retired Military Personnel, and First Responders with ID
$10: Students with ID
Free: Under 18 years old
The Museum offers half-price tickets on Sundays and free admission on Fridays.
The Museum is closed Mondays and holidays, including New Year's Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and Christmas.
