Carolina QuotesWe [the American Abstract-expressionist artists of the 1940's] were formed by the Depression [1930's], when the American dream lay in pieces on the floor. The possibility of making money was inconceivable to us. America was innocent in relation to modern art, and no one cared. The reigning painters in America were very parochial in relation to the international tradition.. .What held us together was our ambition to use the standards of international modernism as a gauge, not those of Thomas Hart Benton or Grant Wood or Guy Pene du Bois. We did have a terrible struggle, but not for success. It was to make painting that would stand up under international scrutiny, and all the rest was a byproduct."
Robert Motherwell Connected to the Carolinas
Source
as cited by Grace Glueck, in 'Robert Motherwell, Master of Abstract, Dies', by Grace Glueck, 'New York Times, 18 July 1991
- work
- Undated
- year
- 1991
Cite this record
“We [the American Abstract-expressionist artists of the 1940'…” Robert Motherwell. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-A325836264. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/a325836264
More from Robert Motherwell
I love painting the way one loves the body of a women.. ..if painting must have an intellectual and social background, it is only to enhance and make more rich an essentially warm, simple, radiant act, for which everyone has a need.
One is to know that art is not national, that to be merely an American or a French artist is to be nothing; to fail to overcome one's initial environment is never to reach the human.. .Thus when we say one of the ideals of modern art has been internationalism, it is.. ..as a natural consequence of dealing with reality on a certain level. [quote in 1946]
You let the brush take over and in a way follow its own head, and in the brush doing what it's doing, it will stumble on what one couldn't by oneself.. .It's essential to fracture influences in the same way that free association in psychoanalysis helps to fracture one's social self-deceptions.