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Open No. 150: in Black and Cream (Rothko Elegy)
Artist
Robert Motherwell
(American, 1915 - 1991)
Date1970
MediumAcrylic on canvas
DimensionsOverall: 69 x 204 1/4 in. (175.26 x 518.8 cm)
Credit LineCollection of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Museum purchase, The Friends of Art Endowment Fund
Object number1999.22
Status
Not on viewCopyright© 2020 Dedalus Foundation, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Category
Label TextRobert Motherwell’s Open #150 in Black and Cream (Rothko Elegy), 1970, pays tribute to his friend and fellow Abstract Expressionist Mark Rothko, who committed suicide in February of that year. Rothko’s pioneering experiments with the viscosity of paint and the application of blocks of color influenced Motherwell’s large monochrome canvases in the Open series (1967–75). Instead of the sun-drenched, Mediterranean colors and charcoal-delineated rectangles that characterize other works in the Open series, in Open #150 Motherwell placed a block of cream against a dense black surface. The compositional and symbolic use of dark and light and the inclusion of “elegy” in its title link Open #150 to another of Motherwell’s series, Elegies to the Spanish Republic (1948–1991). In close to two hundred paintings memorializing the Spanish Civil War (1936–39), Motherwell explored contrasts between life and death. Bringing together the themes of the Open series and the Elegies, the monumental darkness of Open #150 is simultaneously reinforced and relieved by the lightness of the cream-colored rectangle at top. Arguably one of the starkest and most dramatic of Motherwell’s paintings, Open #150 powerfully evokes the sublimity and poignancy of Rothko’s art.