TV REVIEW : ‘Motherwell’: The Civilized Abstract Expressionist

A rather windy title at least tells you what it’s all about--”Robert Motherwell and the New York School: Storming the Citadel.” An edifying segment of “American Masters” (at 9:30 tonight on KCET Channel 28), it concerns what Alfred Barr once called the most hated movement in the history of art, the rise and eventual triumph of Abstract Expressionism.

Ordinary Americans, critics and politicians found it variously crazy, decadent and subversive. By the ‘50s it emerged as the first world-class American style. Its pioneers became cultural heroes--Pollock, De Kooning, Rothko, Newman, Smith and, of course, Motherwell.

Never regarded as AE’s most important master, he was unlike the others in background and temperament. They tended to be immigrants or Brandoesque wild men, like Pollock. Motherwell was a university man of good background who adored and reflected the European modernist tradition. He admired Joyce and the French Symbolists. He was inspired to do collage when he saw Picasso fooling with it at Le Deux Magots. He moved to New York late, in the ‘40s, after the others had run the gantlet of artistic bonding on the dole for the WPA.

A year ago, Motherwell qualified as the star of this show because he was the last master fully functional. Now he is gone. Having him still alive on this film so soon after his death in July makes it very special.

One admires its expert commentators, such as curator William Rubin and sculptor Philp Pavia. One appreciates the archival footage on the legendary Cedar Bar and the Club. But one rather cherishes the images of Motherwell, glasses perched on a puffy nose, granny length hair and aged arms. He works away, thoughtfully spontaneous. His suave voice broadcasts superior intelligence. He seems almost too civilized for an Abstract Expressionist.

Then he tells of a time he was blocked and could not paint. He forced himself to work automatically, without judgment or his usual editing. He produced nearly 300 small paintings in a day. That night he learned that his best friend, the sculptor David Smith, had been killed in an auto accident. He never finished the series, he says, as if it were bad luck.