Recto, upper left: R. Motherwell 57

Arnold and Selma Squires, before 1960; Emily Squires Levine, 1999

In August 1957, Motherwell described the genesis of the uncharacteristic figurative drawings he had recently created: “The garden of [Fritz] Bultman’s house in New York City touches the garden of my own house, and one day last spring he shouted across that he was having a nude model in that evening, and would I come to draw from her, something I hadn’t done since I begin to exhibit.” For more on these works, see the series Comments in the catalogue raisonné (D239–D249).