Robert Motherwell was a fabulous artist and writer. He majored in philosphy in college and possessed a critical and observant mind. This book contains a huge percentage of his writings on many subjects: political tracks, thoughts on painting movement, the painting process, his own teaching philosphy, and eulogies and rememberances of some of his great contemporaries Pollock, Kline, Rothko, and Smith. Although he was a complex thinker and and as a result a very hard to digest writer, it will be well worth your time to go through this master abstract painters writings. He gives a wonderfully intimate insight into the energetic and creative atmosphere of the early formative years of the New York Abstract School.
Here are several wonderful quotes from the book “A painting is not a picture of something in front of your eyes. It is an attack on the medium which comes to mean something” p. 214
“Nothing as drastic an innovation as abstract art could have come into existence save as a consequence of a most profound need”
