his death there in 1991. Mark Rothko, Franz Kline, and
Adolph Gottlieb were there. Even Jackson Pollock and
Willem de Kooning were around town in the 1940s.
Interestingly, Motherwell had little formal art training.
After Stanford, he did
graduate work in aesthetics
at Harvard. In 1939, he
enrolled in the graduate
program in art history at
Columbia University, where
he met art scholar Meyer
Schapiro who introduced
him to Marcel Duchamp,
Max Ernst, Roberto Matta,
and Andr�� Masson, all of
whom had come to New
York to escape the war. Many
of the Surrealist artists were
in Manhattan at the time.
Abstract
Expressionism
was sparked by Surrealism
and its emphasis on
���psychic
automatism,���
which involves the artist
using his unconscious to
guide his hand; the result is Robert Motherwell, Open No.86-In
a spontaneous expression
Blue With Charcoal Line, 1972
of the artist���s feelings. It���s
about unleashing an artist���s individuality and creative
instincts. Abstract Expressionism does not relate to a
HYLAND
