Robert Motherwell
Subtitle: the Dedalus sketchbooks
By: selected and edited by Constance and Jack Glenn ; introduction by Constance Glenn.
Contributors: Glenn, Constance.; Glenn, Jack.
Series: An Abrams artist's sketchbook
Publisher: H.N. Abrams
Published: 1988
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 26
Subjects: Motherwell, Robert -- Catalogs; Joyce, James, 1882-1941 -- Influence
Other titles: Dedalus sketchbooks.
Description: Books - the great literature that fuels his imagination, the little-known sketchbooks he has kept over the years, or the splendid livres de luxe he has created - have always played a critical role in the life and art of renowned Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell. Since his rise to fame as a founder of the New York School during the 1940s, he has consistently returned to the works of the great Irish writer James Joyce - most especially to Ulysses and the odyssey of Stephen Dedalus - for inspiration. During the summer of 1982 preparations for an important international Joyce symposium in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where Motherwell has long kept a small studio, prompted him to fill two sketchbooks with pen-and-ink drawings in the spirit of Joyce's explorations. The drawings, all of which are reproduced in this volume, are unselfconscious and intuitive. Most of these informal, witty, and characteristically lyrical sketches are closely related to visual themes Motherwell has developed in his paintings; but others are surprisingly direct and accessiblel evocations of Joyce's characters - Leopold and Molly Bloom and Stephen Dedalus. The Dedalus Sketchbooks therefore offers an unparalleled opportunity to see the artist's inspiration take form in intriguing and intimate ways. Motherwell's famous bold shapes and gestures are here stripped down to eloquent, simple divisions of space that formally and spiritually tell us much about the creative process. -- from back cover.