Robert Motherwell: Pure Painting will be the first presentation in more than a quarter century to fully examine the mastery of Robert Motherwell (1915–1991), a major figure who shaped postwar art. The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth is an especially fitting venue to mount this exhibition given its institutional commitment to the artist’s work, holding over fifty works in a variety of media in its collection and hosting the final retrospective organized during Motherwell’s lifetime in 1991. 

Organized by guest curator Susan Davidson, Pure Painting will feature a selection of visually compelling works chosen from throughout the artist’s lengthy and influential career. Beginning with the abstracted-figurative works that dominated Motherwell’s first decade of painting as he emerged in the New York art world in the early 1940s, the exhibition will highlight the subsequent key series that defined his oeuvre, offering new insights into his evolution as an artist. Although he was equally proficient as a collagist, a printmaker, and a draftsman, it is Motherwell’s expansive sense of painting that this retrospective will explore.