The Writings of Robert Motherwell

"Robert Motherwell was not just a great painter, he was a brilliant thinker. As the founding editor of The Documents of Twentieth-Century of Art. , he decisively shaped our understanding of modernism. This new and expanded selection of Motherwell's criticism provides an essential guide to the art of the high modern period, both American and European. "-Pepe Karmel, author of Picasso and the Invention of Cubism. "In the past two decades Abstract Expressionism has become one of the most dynamic subjects in art history; sometimes the reading is so dense it is like swimming through peanut butter. But, cutting through to the essential questions that generated the movement, the writings of Robert Motherwell are a treasure. Written at the same time he was painting, Motherwell's texts make me feel like a witness to the philosophical curiosity that generated one of the most powerful art movements of the twentieth century. "-Michael Auping, author of Abstract Expressionism: The Critical Developments. "This book is essential reading for anyone thinking about the uneasy clash of modernism and postmodernism in postwar America; Motherwell's writing played a decisive role and this volume is an admirably full account of it. "-Jonathan Fineberg, author of When We Were Young: New Perspectives on the Art of the Child.