Robert Motherwell: Printmaker

Jerald Melberg Gallery is pleased to present Robert Motherwell: Printmaker, an exhibition dedicated to the seminal printmaking work of Robert Motherwell (1915-1991), one of the most influential figures of twentieth-century American art. Best known as a leading voice of the Abstract Expressionist movement, Motherwell's reputation as a painter is matched by his remarkable contributions to the medium of printmaking - a vital facet of his artistic achievement.  

Motherwell was a core member of the New York School and was widely regarded as the movement's most articulate spokesmen and intellectual advocate. While Motherwell's paintings have long been celebrated for their bold gestures and emotionally resonant forms, printmaking helped define the expressive vocabulary of postwar American abstraction. He was one of the few Abstract Expressionists to embrace printmaking extensively, producing many editions in lithography, etching, aquatint, screenprint, and other graphic processes. In 1980, the Museum of Modern Art's landmark exhibition The Painter and the Printer: Robert Motherwell's Graphics positioned him as "the only original Abstract Expressionist to have worked extensively in this medium," highlighting how his command of gesture, form, and material translated from canvas to paper.  

Robert Motherwell: Printmaker features a wide selection of editioned works reflecting the breadth of his output. Included are key prints such as Dance III, Wanderer, Elegy Sketch, Red Samurai, Sirens II, Primal Sign IV-VI, Spanish Elegy I & II, and Black on Black. These editioned works reveal Motherwell's deep engagement with composition, scale, and emotion-often bridging the expressive intensity of his paintings with the intimacy and technical rigor of printmaking. 

The exhibition also examines Motherwell's sustained engagement with literature and poetic form. Works such as Stephen's Iron Crown Etched reflect his lifelong admiration for James Joyce, whose experimental prose and structural innovations profoundly shaped Motherwell's intellectual and artistic development to become a dedicated reader and scholar of Joyce's work, frequently drawing on Joycean themes and titles throughout his career. 

This literary engagement culminated in The Ulysses Suite (1988), a masterful series of twenty two etchings created for the novel. Conceived not as direct illustration but as a visual parallel to Joyce's stream of consciousness narrative, the prints translate the novel's shifting voices, psychological intensity, and structural complexity into a dynamic language of line, gesture, and spatial tension.  

A complete and rare set of The Ulysses Suite will be on view as part of the exhibition, offering a significant opportunity to experience the full scope of Motherwell's achievement in printmaking. Seen together, the prints reveal the depth of his engagement with Joyce's modernist masterpiece and underscore his conviction that abstraction, like literature, can embody narrative cadence, intellectual rigor, and emotional complexity. 

By presenting these works, Robert Motherwell: Printmaker highlights the sophistication and innovation of his printmaking practice, reaffirming his legacy not only as a central figure in Abstract Expressionism but also as a pioneering printmaker whose contributions expanded the possibilities of twentieth-century modern art.