Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 110 by Robert Motherwell, 1971, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

On this date in 1915, American painter Robert Motherwell was born in the state of Washington. According to Wikipedia: He was one of the youngest of the New York School (a phrase he coined). Motherwell’s work encompassed both the expressive brushwork of action painting and the breadth of scale and saturated hues of color field painting.

Robert Motherwell, View from a High Tower, 1944–45 (detail). Tempera, oil, ink, pastel, and pasted wood veneer, drawing papers, Japanese papers, and printed map on paperboard, 74.3 x 74.3 cm. Private collection © Dedalus Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

The New York School (synonymous with abstract expressionist painting) was an informal group of American poets, painters, dancers, and musicians active in the 1950s and 1960s in New York City.

Personage (Autoportrait) by Robert Motherwell, December 9, 1943. Gouache, ink, and colored paper and Japanese paper collage on paperboard. Credit: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, 1976

They often drew inspiration from surrealism and the contemporary avant-garde art movements, in particular action painting, abstract expressionism, jazz, improvisational theater, experimental music, and the interaction of friends in the New York City art world’s vanguard circle.

Studio with “Elegy to the Spanish Republic no. 100 (revisited)” by Robert Motherwell. Photo: https://www.formidablemag.com/robert-motherwell/

The New York School also included Philip Guston, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko. Motherwell died in 1991.