Robert Motherwell Untitled (Elegy), 1983-1985
Painted in 1983-1985, Untitled (Elegy) is a vivid example of the ambitious work Robert Motherwell pursued in the last decade of his life.
From the 1970s, Motherwell became the subject of increasing art historical study as one of the few remaining survivors of the Abstract Expressionist generation. A series of major exhibitions provided him the opportunity to review his life’s work during these years, culminating in 1983 with his first U.S. retrospective since 1965 at the Albright-Knox Gallery that travelled to Washington D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York. The process of reviewing his own canon for inclusion in these retrospectives left marked traces in his work for years to come as it brought about an immensely fruitful period in his practice, one that saw him invent, reinvigorate, work and rework many of his most important thematic pursuits.
In May 2018, Phillips set a new auction record for Motherwell, selling At Five in the Afternoon (1971) for $12,690,000
Untitled (Elegy) eloquently encapsulates the adroitness with which Motherwell reinvented and reimagined the most celebrated strains of his art from the previous four decades. In 1971, Motherwell began to paint his first large Elegies since 1967. These works pay homage to the evolution his practice underwent with the Opens, capturing the sensitivity to structure and surface that defined that series. Untitled (Elegy) articulates the tension between abstraction and figuration that characterizes his most iconic Elegies begun in the late 1940s, with the interrogation of line and ground that defined his Opens of the 1960s. Untitled (Elegy) is a testament to Motherwell’s remarkable ability to continuously reinvent himself, refusing to have his work reduced to a single style.