Robert Motherwell: Lyric Suite

By Robert C. Morgan

JUNE 2022 | ArtSeen

My first encounter with Robert Motherwell’s ink paintings, collectively titled Lyric Suite, occurred in 1965. Not only was this the same year the works in this series were painted, but it was also the year of a major retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art featuring Motherwell’s large-scale works on canvas—such as those from the “Elegy to the Spanish Republic” series—curated by the distinguished poet Frank O’Hara. This would eventually combine with a separate exhibition of the artist’s works on paper, including those from Lyric Suite. It was within this context that the works currently on view at Kasmin Gallery emerged into notoriety.

The Dedalus Foundation

By Phyllis Tuchman

DEC 21-JAN 22 | ArTonic

Robert Motherwell was a multi-hyphenate artist. He’s entered art history books as the youngest and best educated of the first wave of Abstract Expressionists. But Motherwell also enjoyed a significant career as the editor of the “Documents of Modern Art” series, among other publications, and as a Hunter College professor.

Elaine Reichek: Material Girl

By Norman L Kleeblatt

APRIL 2022 | ArtSeen

Elaine Reichek scavenges among sources from literature, history, mythology, and art, fabricating images and texts she transforms into textiles. Trained as a painter by avant-garde, intellectually rigorous icons, notably Ad Reinhardt, her career has been defined by her strategic use of the textile medium—a feminist, postmodern strategy.

A Correspondence With Motherwell

By Robert C. Morgan

JUNE 2020 | Critics Page

My initial contact with artists’ writings happened in the beginning stages of learning to paint while keeping a journal of notes and drawings in the process. I was in my early 20s and living in Santa Barbara, California. It was the 1970s and I recall seeing an exhibition at LACMA where two large paintings from Robert Motherwell’s “Open” series (circa 1969–70) were on display.