Photograph of Robert Motherwell during the installation of his exhibition, 1984 and installation diagram, 1985. 441: Robert Motherwell. Exhibition files. A0003. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives, New York. Art © Dedalus Foundation, Inc./Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
Finding 62: Robert Motherwell Supervising the Installation of his Exhibition
May 16, 2011
A retrospective exhibition of the Abstract Expressionist painter Robert Motherwell was shown at the Guggenheim Museum from December 7, 1984 to February 3, 1985. It was the sixth and last stop for the exhibition, which toured throughout the country beginning in October of 1983 at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, the organizing institution for the exhibition. The show included about 150 paintings, drawings, mixed-media works, and prints executed between 1941 and 1984. The artist and then Museum Deputy Director Diane Waldman chose approximately 60 of the 150 exhibited works specifically for the Guggenheim showing of the retrospective. Most of these works came from the artist's collection and had never been exhibited before. The photograph shows the artist and Waldman during the exhibition's installation in the High Gallery, where most of these additional works were installed. A diagram of the gallery's south wall, which accompanies the exhibition wall list, matches the configuration of paintings seen in the photograph.
-Shirin Khaki, Archives Assistant