This exhibition of works by Motherwell, Nevelson and Frankenthaler features three of the most important American artists of the twentieth century. Helen Frankenthaler and Robert Motherwell, who married in 1958, are recognized as preeminent Abstract Expressionists and Louise Nevelson is the doyenne, or most celebrated woman sculptor of American modernism. 

The collection gifted to the Haggerty by Lillian Rojtman Berkman consists of 24 works of art including a sculpture by Nevelson and the complete A la pintura portfolio by Motherwell. While the majority of prints in this collection are lithographs, there are also aquatints, etchings, silkscreens, a monotype and works that combine one or more of these printmaking processes. 

The Ukrainian-American sculptor and graphic artist Louise Nevelson (1899-1988) who was employed as a teacher for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1937 is best known for her monochromatic sculptures made of fragments of carved and found wood. Distant Land, the only sculpture in the exhibition is an excellent example her assemblages in wood. The etchings by Nevelson were done after 1947 when the artist began working at Atelier 17, the printmaking studio run by Stanley William Hayter.

Robert Motherwell (1915-1991) worked as a painter, printmaker and editor of several important texts on the history of modern art including The Dada Painters and Poets: An Anthology and Modern Artists in America.Featured in the exhibition are four pages from Motherwell's A la pintura portfolio, a limited edition book of 24 unbound pages printed in letterpress. A la pintura is one of Motherwell's most significant printed works. The etchings and color aquatints in this portfolio illustrate poems by Rafael Alberti.

Born in New York in 1928, Helen Frankenthaler has been a teacher and artist throughout her life. She studied with the Mexican painter and muralist Rufino Tamayo and with Hans Hofmann. Frankenthaler, together with Grace Hartigan, were prominent women second generation Abstract Expressionists. Following Jackson Pollock, Frankenthaler is concerned with the expressive potential of form and color. Her experiments with the direct application of paint on canvas lead to the development of a technique of stain painting that is also apparent in such prints as Yellow Jack,1987.

Lillian Rojtman Berkman has long been a collector of fine art. The collection that she and her late husband Marc B. Rotjman amassed includes Old Master painting along with prints, drawings and sculpture by major European and American artists. Berkman, who now resides in New York City, received an honorary doctorate degree from Marquette University in 1991 and was awarded the Kairos Award for distinguished service to the arts in 1992. 
 

When artists transfer their knowledge and skills as painters or sculptors to paper, the results are often remarkable. Paper offers a freedom and flexibility that invites the artists to explore new ways of making images using ink and various printmaking techniques. The art-making process becomes more social. Robert Motherwell was attracted to printmaking because collaboration with master printmakers freed him from the isolation of painting, and for the print’s accessibility to a wider public. 

All three artists, Motherwell (1915-1991), Helen Frankenthaler (b. 1928), and Louise Nevelson (1899-1988) are among the first rank of mid-century contributors to modern art. Motherwell and Frankenthaler are known for their contributions to abstraction in painting, while Nevelson is best known for her wood sculptures of black and white assemblages. 

Based on their geographic and social origins, as well as their beginnings in art, the grouping of these three artists would seem unlikely. Motherwell from the West Coast and Frankenthaler from the East Coast are from privileged American backgrounds, while Nevelson who was born in the Ukraine was for a time in 1937 employed in the United States Works Progress Administration. 

Motherwell was initially attracted to philosophy and psychoanalysis before encountering art historian Meyer Shapiro who encouraged him to become a painter. His work is strongly influenced by the Surrealists through Matta and other contacts, and by Asian calligraphic arts and Zen. 

Frankenthaler, the younger of the three, focused on painting from the beginning, and evolved through a series of painterly influences from Kandinsky to Rufino Tamayo to Pollock who, along with the critic Clement Greenberg, was her principal mentor. She is best known for her experiments with stain painting. 

Nevelson prepared herself for a career in the arts, initially focused on performance - as an actress, dancer, singer - as well as a painter, as she studied and worked in New York, also in Munich, Berlin, and Vienna, before turning to sculpture. Hans Hofmann was her principal mentor in the visual arts, first in Germany and later in New York where both were forced to emigrate by the political threat in Europe. 

Apart from their having been linked together in the donor's gift, the three artists share, among other things, a desire to create images without relying on inherited iconography.  In their art, the subject matter, to the extent that any exists, is invented in the picture-making process. Spontaneity and restlessness lead to constant invention of new forms. There is hardly any figurative imagery, although it is not out of the question to imagine being confronted by Jungian archetypes concealed in the abstract forms, or even an occasional figurative representation. All three artists seem to favor organic over geometric construction of the picture space, but Motherwell at least works with both. All three appear to emphasize flatness over illusion in accordance with the tenets of abstract Modern art, although some of the surface tension is achieved by a delicate interplay between physicality (flatness) of the canvas and illusion, especially in Frankenthaler's images. All three work in large and even monumental scale, while abandoning the easel. 

A careful scrutiny will certainly uncover important differences. Motherwell and Nevelson favor black in their prints, though not exclusively, while Frankenthaler's palette often extends to beige colors, mauves, greens, oranges, or unusual mixes of these. Motherwell's images are from the interior, psychological states, while Frankenthaler often uses nature as a source for her imagery. By comparison to the other two, Nevelson's two dimensional images rely more on linear structure and texture with a greater degree of illusion than is found in the other two artists' work.

While it is not necessary to make the case here for abstraction in art, it is useful to ask what can the viewer take away from experiencing these works? Possibly the most important thought is to realize again that art and life are not limited to inherited ways of thinking and being. It is possible to invent new ways of making and appreciating art for those who are willing to suspend their dependency on the familiar.

Curtis L. Carter
Director