Robert Motherwell: Early Collages

Robert Motherwell: Early Collages, published to accompany an exhibition devoted exclusively to Motherwell’s works on paper from the 1940s and early 1950s, reexamines the origins of the artist’s style and his revelatory encounter with the papier collé technique that he described in 1944 as “the greatest of our discoveries.” Motherwell’s enthusiasm for and dedication to the collage medium for the remainder of his career sets him apart from other artists of his generation and extended beyond the mere physical presence of pasted cut-and-torn papers. Featuring approximately 60 works and four essays that delve into artists’ engagements with collage in the first half of the twentieth century, Motherwell’s early career with patron Peggy Guggenheim, underlying humanitarian themes during World War II and the artist’s materials, Early Collages provides a vital reassessment of Motherwell’s work in the collage medium.