Drawing

Recto, upper right [painted over]: [RM] 58
Recto, upper right: RM
Recto, lower center: RM
Verso: not signed, not dated

Dedalus Foundation (in torn form)

The artist

In the Catalogue Raisonné this work was illustrated by an early black and white photograph and said to have been destroyed. During the summer of 2012, this work was discovered amid a large cache of Motherwell’s collage materials (torn papers and prints, painted papers, labels, envelopes, etc.), which had been stored in a warehouse several years ago by the Dedalus Foundation.

Although Motherwell had exhibited this painting on paper and had it photographed as a finished work, at an unknown date he tore it into four pieces. It is illustrated here in two states: the first shows the four pieces of the torn painting, the second reassembles the four pieces to reconstitute the original image. The fragments are now considered to be a part of the Dedalus Foundation Archives.