Robert Motherwell Personage, with Yellow Ochre and White 1947

  • MoMA, Floor 4, 402 The David Geffen Galleries

The thick, encrusted surface of Personage reveals that Motherwell created it through countless applications of thick paint. Describing his working process during this period, the artist wrote, “I begin painting with a series of mistakes. The painting comes out of the correction of mistakes by feeling. I begin with shapes and colors, which are not related internally nor to the external world; I work without images.”

Gallery label from Abstract Expressionist New York, October 3, 2010-April 25, 2011.
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
6' x 54" (182.8 x 137 cm)
Credit
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel M. Kootz
Object number
15.1957
Department
Painting and Sculpture

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