"Among champions of high culture, he [Motherwell] has kept to a policy of 'no compromise.' Not for him the contaminations of popular culture or the wish to get clear once and for all of criteria first formulated in Europe. In his writing, his teaching and his conversation, he has kept open a direct line to the European past, no matter whether the great spirits under discussion are Velazquez or Piero della Francesca, Mozart or Mallarme, Goya or Baudelaire. And if he seems to see himself not only as the admirer of these people, but also their peer, it is for the work to justify that idea, rather than for the artist to repress it - A Teacher And an Editor."
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PrintmakersPainters from the United StatesHarvard University alumniStanford University alumniPeople from Washington (state)
Original Language: English
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Quote of John Russell; written at the end of a 40-year retrospective-exhibition of Motherwell (by the Albright-Knox Gallery of Art in Buffalo); ending at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, 1984-85; as cited in 'Robert Motherwell, Master of Abstract, Dies', by Grace Glueck, 'New York Times, 18 July 1991
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Motherwell
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Robert Motherwell
Robert Motherwell (January 24, 1915 – July 16, 1991) was an U.S. abstract expressionist painter. He was one of the youngest artists of the 'New York School' (a phrase he coined), which also included a.o. Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning and Phillip Guston. Motherwell initiated many art debates and publications in this art-scene.
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