Robert Motherwell
American, 1915 - 1991
SchoolAbstract Expressionism
BiographyMotherwell was born in Aberdeen, Washington on January 24, 1915. In the 1930s, he studied philosophy at Stanford University, and later as a postgraduate student at Harvard University. He went to Paris in 1938-1939, and decided to pursue painting after his return to the United States. Motherwell studied art history for several years with Meyer Schapiro at Columbia University. Much of the dark subject matter found in Motherwell's early abstract paintings relates to his response to World War II and the Spanish Civil War. In the 1950s, he taught at Hunter College in New York and at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. His work maintained an abstract expressionist artistic vocabulary through the 1970s, often dealing with personal emotions and life events. He died in Princetown, Massachusetts on July 16, 1991.(Source: Grove Dictionary of Art Online)
Person TypeIndividual
