The exhibition is the first retrospective in Europe for 25 years dedicated to the American painter Robert Motherwell (1915-1991), a leading figure of Abstract Expressionism.
Motherwell’s work has close links to European literature and painting but while his figurative beginnings were rooted in French Surrealism, he developed a purely abstract painting style in large format from the mid-1950s. Dominating his oeuvre are series and variations that give expression to an intensive and ever-recurring handling of specific themes such as Elegies to the Spanish Republic, a reaction to the atrocities of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). In a monumental, “pure” kind of painting marked by austerity and reduction, Motherwell transports emotions by means of sophisticated color systems and reserved expression.
The exhibition gathers around 40 representative key works with loans from private collections and major American and European institutions such as the MoMA, New York; The Art Institute of Chicago; Denver Art Museum; Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; Tate, London.
