Robert Motherwell occupies a distinctive position within Abstract Expressionism, particularly in his sustained engagement with printmaking, which he treated as a parallel and rigorous practice for nearly his entire career-one driven by the same openness and experimental sensibility that shaped his painting. "Print-making is my hobby, my mistress," he once remarked.
ROBERT MOTHERWELL | (DETAIL) French Revolution Bicentennial Suite, 1987-88. Aquatint with photoengraving and collage elements, grid: 50 x 57 in (127 x 144.8 cm)
Created in 1987-88, the French Revolution Bicentennial Suite consists of four prints executed in etching and aquatint with photoengraving and collage, printed in red, blue, and black. With the portions in white within each composition, each print is a chromatic nod to the tricolore of the French flag. The photoengraving in black echoes the gestural brushwork in his iconic and extensive series, Elegy to the Spanish Republic (1948-1990). The works are defined by bold color fields interrupted by fragments of paper embedded within the compositions. Throughout the series, the fleur-de-lis, the three-petaled symbol historically associated with the French monarchy; the divine right to rule; and the religious purity of the Virgin Mary, appears repeatedly-but never as a stable or intact form. Instead, it is obscured and fragmented; its authority diminished through the very processes used to construct each image. As a result, there are inherent variations between impressions of the same print, owing to the unique application of the collage elements, with subtle differences visible upon close inspection.
ROBERT MOTHERWELL | (DETAIL) French Revolution Bicentennial Suite, 1987-88. Aquatint with photoengraving and collage elements, grid: 50 x 57 in (127 x 144.8 cm)
The suite was created in response to the bicentennial of the French Revolution, an event whose impact on the history of art is difficult to overstate. As John Canaday observed, the Revolution fundamentally altered the conditions of artistic production, particularly through the formation of public museums such as the Louvre via the nationalization of formerly aristocratic collections. In subsequent generations, artists were able to access historically significant works that would have previously been unavailable to them. Paul Cézanne, for one, aspired to "do Poussin over again, after nature," and was known to have spent a great deal of time in the Louvre as he developed his practice over many years.
ROBERT MOTHERWELL | (DETAIL) French Revolution Bicentennial Suite, 1987-88. Aquatint with photoengraving and collage elements, grid: 50 x 57 in (127 x 144.8 cm)
The imagery of the Bicentennial Suite originates in a group of collages created for Georges Soria's Grand histoire de la Révolution française. One of these works was inscribed "pour le bi-Centenaire de la Révolution Française" within a red field. These collages incorporate fragments of Motherwell's earlier prints-including a proof from the 1986 etching and aquatint, Yellow Flight-alongside stenciled fleur-de-lis motifs rendered in spray paint. A group of six collages was produced, with numbers two through five later serving as maquettes for the corresponding prints in the 1988 suite.
ROBERT MOTHERWELL | (DETAIL) French Revolution Bicentennial Suite, 1987-88. Aquatint with photoengraving and collage elements, grid: 50 x 57 in (127 x 144.8 cm)
Although Motherwell's work is often described as abstract, it remained grounded in external reference. As noted in his catalogue raisonné, "the imagery of his pictures no matter how abstract they may appear, is almost always tied to something in the world." In the Bicentennial Suite, that connection is both historical and symbolic-less a depiction of the Revolution than an engagement with its historical significance through an abstract visual language.
ROBERT MOTHERWELL | (DETAIL) French Revolution Bicentennial Suite, 1987-88. Aquatint with photoengraving and collage elements, grid: 50 x 57 in (127 x 144.8 cm)
When Motherwell chose to engage overtly with political themes, he did so cautiously. As Jack Flam noted, "After the political significance of the historical events that gave those [works] their titles had changed, Motherwell sometimes found himself open to criticism from both the left and the right." Seeking to avoid what he considered mediocre political art, he maintained a position in which, as Flam observed, his "resistance to tyrannical authority" was "rooted in deeply felt ethical beliefs." For Motherwell, "aesthetic judgements were inextricably linked to ethical values."
ROBERT MOTHERWELL | (DETAIL) French Revolution Bicentennial Suite, 1987-88. Aquatint with photoengraving and collage elements, grid: 50 x 57 in (127 x 144.8 cm)
The prints were produced in Motherwell's Greenwich studio in Connecticut in collaboration with Catherine Mosley and released by Waddington Graphics. The copper plates are now held in the collection of the Walker Art Center, gifted through the Dedalus Foundation. Editions of the suite are in other public collections such as the Art Institute of Chicago, Kunstmuseum Basel, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
ROBERT MOTHERWELL | (DETAIL) French Revolution Bicentennial Suite, 1987-88. Aquatint with photoengraving and collage elements, grid: 50 x 57 in (127 x 144.8 cm)
In the French Revolution Bicentennial Suite, Motherwell does not attempt to illustrate history directly. Instead, meaning emerges through the interaction between image, material, and process—an approach that remains consistent with his broader belief that a work cannot be predetermined, but must be discovered through its making.
For information about these impressions, or to inquire about other postwar abstraction prints available through the gallery, please email info@zanebennettgallery.com.
ROBERT MOTHERWELL | (DETAIL) French Revolution Bicentennial Suite, 1987-88. Aquatint with photoengraving and collage elements, grid: 50 x 57 in (127 x 144.8 cm)
Photos by Byron Flesher, courtesy of Zane Bennett Contemporary Art
