Robert Motherwell
1915
Born to Robert Burns Motherwell II and Margaret Motherwell in Aberdeen, Washington, on 24th January.
1918
Family moves to California.
1919-26
Family live in Salt Lake City, Utah.
1926
Family moves permanently to California. Receives a scholarship to the Otis Art Institute
in Los Angeles.
1932-1937
Studies painting briefly at California School of Fine Arts, San Francisco before attending
Stanford University, Palo Alto, California receives BA in philosophy.
1937-38
Completes one year of a Philosophy PhD, Harvard University.
1938
Travels in Europe. Spends the summer at the University of Grenoble. Rents a studio in Paris from October, 1938 to July, 1939.
1939
Teaches Art, University of Oregon, Eugene.
1940
Moves to New York and studies History of Art with Meyer Shapiro, at Columbia University.
Works as studio assistant to surrealist artist, Kurt Seligmann.
1941
Travels to Mexico with the Chilean Surrealist painter Roberto Matta ; does "automatic" drawings and paints first major paintings including The Little Spanish Prison. Meets the Mexican actress Maria Emilia Ferreria y Moyers whom he marries the following year.
Returns to New York City in December ; moves into Perry Street Apartment in Greenwich village.
1942
Permanently abandons university studies in favour of painting. Meets William Baziotes and quickly gains entry to a group of New York Artists including Pollock, Rothko and Kline, who would come to be known as Abstract Expressionists. Collaborates with Max Ernst and André Breton on the surrealist magazine VVV.
1943
Father dies. Income ceases. Makes first collages with Jackson Pollock.
1944
First one-man exhibition at Peggy Guggenheim's gallery, Art of this Century, New York.
First museum purchase, Pancho Villa Dead and Alive, by Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Writes for Partisan Review. Until 1951, edits and directs the Documents of Modern Art series.
1945
Signs exclusive contract with Samuel Kootz Gallery, New York. Spends spring in Florida with William Baziotes. Becomes friendly with Adolphe Gottleib. Teaches during the summer
at Black Mountain College, North Carolina. Moves to East Hampton, Long Island where he buys a studio designed by Architect Pierre Chareau.
1946
Meets Mark Rothko in East Hampton. Included in exhibition "Fourteen Americans" at Museum of Modern Art, New York.
1947
Publishes Possibilities with John Cage, Pierre chareau and Harold Rosenberg.
1948
Founds the Art School "Subjects of the Artists", with Baziotes, David Hare and Rothko.
Later joined by Newman. First use of the image which was to become the motif for the Elegy series.
1949
Divorces Maria Ferreira y Moyers. Opens Robert Motherwell School of Fine Art.
1950
Marries Betty Little. Meets David Smith.
Takes teaching post at Hunter College, New York.
1951
Teaches during summer at Black Mountain College ; Robert Rauschenberg and Cy Twombly
are students. Writes The School of New York for the Frank Perls Gallery. Lectures at Museum of Modern Art, New York and Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University.
1952
Lectures at CAA, New York and at Washington University. Gives graduate seminar at Oberlin College, Ohio ; participates in panel discussion in Woodstock, New York.
1953
Daughter Jeannie born.
1954
Teaches at Colorado Springs Fine Arts Centre ; meets Emerson Woelffer. Guest of Federal
Republic of Germany in exchange program.
1955
Included in exhibition "The New Decade : Thirty Fine American Painters and Sculptors", Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
Daughter Lise born.
Included in MoMA's exhibition "Modern Art in The United States" which tours European cities.
1957
Divorces Betty Little.
Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, becomes exclusive dealer.
1958
Marries Helen Frankenthaler.
Included in MoMA's "The New American Painting" which tours Europe.
Spends summer in Spain and France, mainly Saint Jean de Luz ; begins Iberia series of black paintings.
1959
First retrospective at Bennington College, Vermont. Resigns from Hunter College.
1960
Interviewed by David Sylvester for the BBC : Painting as a Self-Discovery, interview is later published in Metro magazine as Painting as Existence. Spends summer in Italy ; starts Summertime in Italy series.
1961
Travels to London and Paris. Begins to make prints at Tatyana Grosman's Universal Limited Art Editions Studio, Long Island. Retrospective exhibition at VI Bienal de Arte, Sao Paulo, Brazil.
1962
Lectures and conducts workshops at Emily Lowe Art Gallery, Florida. Buys house in Princetown, "Sea Barn".
Appointed visiting critic at University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
1963
Becomes art consultant for "Partisan review". Included in CBS television broadcast with fourteen other contemporary painters. Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, New York becomes his exclusive dealer.
1964
Visits Paris Venice and London. Awarded 4th Guggenheim International Award, Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York.
1965
Creates Lyric Suite, 565 ink drawings.
Retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, curated by Frank O'Hara, with a major catalogue, the exhibition travels to museums in London, Brussels, Essen and Turin.
David Smith dies in driving accident.
1967
Begins Open series of paintings.
1968
Elected advisory editor of the "American Scholar". Becomes general editor of Documents of 20th Century Art. Joins a number of protests against the Vietnam War.
1969
Elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters, New York.
Separates from Helen Frankenthaler.
1970
Moves principal studio to Greenwich, Connecticut. Rothko commits suicide and Motherwell
writes a eulogy delivered January 1971.
Protests Vietnam War by refusing to contribute to federally sponsored exhibition. Participates
in Art Workers "Coalition at MoMA.
1971
Divorces Frankenthaler. Appointed distinguished professor at Hunter College.
Begins sessions with Blackwood Productions for documentary film on him.
1972
Marries the photographer Renate Ponsold.
Collage retrospective at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Complete etchings for Alberti's A la pintura published by Universal Limited Art Editions.
Lauwrence Rubins becomes his main dealer (and subsequently heads M. Knoedler & Co, New York, London, Zurich).
Kenneth Tyler becomes his major collaborator in lithography. Begins series In Plato's Cave.
1973
Begins making etchings on his own press in Greenwich, with Catherine Mousley.
1974
Emergency hospitalisation. Undergoes major surgery at Mt. Sinai Hospital, New York, remains on heart drug therapy and monitoring for remainder of his life.
1975
Retrospective exhibitions at Museum of Modern Art, Mexico City and at the Princeton Art
Museum.
1976
Retrospective exhibitions in Dusseldorf and Stockholm.
1977
Retrospective exhibitions in Vienna, Edinburgh and Paris.
Begins mural commissioned by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
1978
Retrospective exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art, London.
Receives Grande Medaille de Vermeil de la Ville de Paris. Mural installed at the National Gallery of Art.
1979
Receives Gold Medal of Honour from Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia.
Retrospective exhibition, William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, Storrs.
1980
Retrospective exhibitions in Barcelona and Madrid. Awarded Gold medal University of Salamanca, Spain. Graphics retrospective Museum of Modern Art, New York, under the auspices of the American Federation of Arts.
1981
Mayor's Award, New York.
1982
Opening in November of Motherwell gallery in perpetuity in the Bavarian State Gallery of Modern Art, Munich.
1983
Writes foreword to Abstract Expressionist Painting by William C. Seitz, Harvard University Press.
1986
Recipient of gold medal from Juan Carlos. General health begins to decline.
1990
Enters Greenwich Hospital after suffering a stroke. Recuperates and enjoys an intense period
of painting in 1991.
1991
Dies at the age of 76, on July 16th in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
