american-art art art-theory essays literature non-fiction

This book brings together a representative selection of Robert Motherwell's writings about art, public lectures, essays, interviews, and letters. Motherwell's writing was invaluable in articulating the intent of the New York School of American artists--Pollock, de Kooning, Gottlieb, Kline, Baziotes, Still, Gorky--during a period when their work was often reviled for its departure from traditional representation. Motherwell was not only the primary theorist of abstract expressionism but also one of its major exponents. As founder of the Documents of Modern Art series (later renamed The Documents of Twentieth-Century Art), he gathered the writings of modern artists to give them a voice at a time when very few people understood their theories or work.