The collected writings of Robert Motherwell

In the history of art, only a handful of great artists have been able to articulate the nature of the creative process. Robert Motherwell was one such artist. Not only a seminal painter in the movement eventually referred to as abstract expressionism, he was also a primary theorist and spokesperson for the avant-garde art that developed mainly in New York City during the Second World War. Throughout the formative years of abstract expressionism, Motherwell's presence as artist, editor of a series of pioneering books on modern art, lecturer, and teacher was influential in both illuminating and shaping the development of what he termed "The Enterprise" of abstract art. This book brings together a representative selection of Motherwell's writings about art, dating from 1941 to 1988. It contains more than sixteen essays, a number of pieces from exhibition catalogs, more than a dozen public lectures, and all the artist's vanguard editorial work. The last includes his introductions to several volumes of the pioneering series Documents of Modern Art, which he began directing and editing in 1944; his contribution to possibilities, the first magazine devoted to modern art and culture in the