Recto, upper left: RM
Verso: "Capriccio" 1950 \ Robert Motherwell

Property of Cynthia S. Monaco Revocable Trust

Leopold S. Tuchman; Cynthia S. Monaco; [Bonhams, online sale, July 31, 2025]

In the catalogue for his November 1950 solo exhibition at the Samuel M. Kootz Gallery, Motherwell divided his recent work into several categories, including “Elegies (to the Spanish Republic),” “Capriccios,” and “Wall Paintings.” He defined capriccios as relating to the term “used by musicians, to mean a ‘composition in a more or less free form,’ often fantastic. The subjects are the classical ones of 20th Century Parisian abstract painting: figures, interiors, still lifes. The fantasy is brutal and ironical.” While the Kootz catalogue includes a section on drawings from 1950 related to the themes of “Nudes, Spanish Elegies, Cocks, and Capriccios,” there is no surviving checklist of the specific drawings that were included in the exhibition. See also catalogue raisonné number D165.