Recto, lower right (on brown paper mount): Motherwell

David Janis

Sidney Janis, ca. 1943; David Janis

In 1942, Motherwell contributed a number of related drawings to a limited-edition portfolio meant to fund the nascent Surrealist magazine VVV (pronounced “triple V”). Other artists included in the portfolio were André Breton, Alexander Calder, Leonora Carrington, Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, David Hare, André Masson, Roberto Matta, Kurt Seligmann, and Yves Tanguy. Although an edition of fifty portfolios was announced, it appears as though only around twenty were created and sold. Motherwell’s ovoid drawings are all executed on sheets of white paper mounted to larger sheets of brown paper that matched the dimensions of the portfolio. For more on this project, see the series Comments in the catalogue raisonné (D21–D40).