Recto, lower left: For Robert Hobbs with profound esteem
Recto, lower right: Motherwell ap II \ plus unique hand painting by RM

Jean Crutchfeld & Robert Hobbs

Jean Crutchfeld & Robert Hobbs, 1976

Motherwell painted this work in black and white acrylic on an impression of his 1975 lithograph Spanish Elegy II (Engberg and Banach 2003, no. 195). In 1978, Motherwell painted four related works over impressions of the same lithograph (see W534—W537).
This work was given to the art historian Robert C. Hobbs in 1976 upon the completion of his Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he wrote the first doctoral dissertation on Motherwell (see Hobbs 1975b).