Alberti Picture

Recto, lower left: RM \ 1980
Recto, lower left, on matte board: for Rafael Alberti\ Primavera 1981 Greenwich
Recto, lower center, on matte board: his friend
Recro, lower right, on matte board: Robert Motherwell

C80 - 2622

Private collection

Rafael Alberti, 1981; private collection, ca. 1990

This is one of a number of works that Motherwell painted in 1980 on multilayered handmade paper created by Tyler Graphics Ltd. (see W643–W646). The work was mounted on a black matte board and Motherwell signed and inscribed a dedication to the poet Rafael Aberti (1902–1999) on the black board with colored pencils.
This work was given as a gift to Alberti when he visited Motherwell in the spring of 1981in Greenwich, Connecticut. At the time of his visit, Motherwell was working at Tyler Graphics on the livre d’artiste El Negro (Engberg and Banach 2003, nos. 308.1–.21), which used Alberti’s 1980 poem “El Negro Motherwell” as its text.