The Checkered Skirt

Artist Robert Motherwell American, 1915–1991

Date1947

MediumOil on fiberboard

Dimensionsoverall: 48 7/8 × 21 5/8 in. (124.1 × 54.9 cm)
frame: 50 9/16 × 23 1/4 × 2 1/2 in. (128.4 × 59.1 × 6.4 cm)

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineGift of the Olsen Foundation

Object numberG.58.21.1

On View

Not on view

ProvenanceCreated New York, 1947; collection of the artist; [Kootz Gallery, New York, ca. 1947]; Dr. and Mrs. Fred Olsen, Guilford, CT, ca. 1948; Olsen Foundation, New Haven, CT; given to NCMA, 1958.

Published ReferencesB. W. [Ben Wolf], “Fifty-Seventh Street in Review,” (exhibition reviews) Art Digest (May 15, 1948), mentioned 19.

Clement Greenberg, “Art” (exhibition reviews) in The Nation 166, no. 2 (May 29, 1948), mentioned 613.

J[ames] B. B[yrnes], "Recent Gift," North Carolina Museum of Art Calendar of Art Events 2, no. 2 (November 1958), discussed and illus. (b-w) unnumbered page.

American Paintings since 1900 from the Permanent Collection (exhibition catalogue) (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1967), cat. no. 54, illus. (b-w).

Edgar Peters Bowron, ed., Introduction to the Collections (Chapel Hill: published for the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, by the University of North Carolina Press, 1983), illus. (b-w) 274.

Clement Greenberg: The Collected Essays and Criticism, Vol. 2, Arrogant Purpose, 1945–1949, John O’Brian, ed. (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1986), “Review of Exhibitions of Le Corbusier and Robert Motherwell,” mentioned 242.

Introduction to the Collections, rev. ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1992), illus. (b-w) 269.

Chad Weinard, “Black Mountain College: Modern Galleries,” in Docent’s Palette (NCMA docent newsletter) March – April – May 2005, mentioned 2.

Jack Flam, Katy Rogers, and Tim Clifford, Robert Motherwell Paintings and Collages: A Catalogue Raisonné, 1941–1991, Vol. 2, Paintings on Canvas and Panel (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2012), cat. P67, illus. (color).
Exhibition HistoryNew York, NY, Samuel M. Kootz Gallery, “Paintings and Collages by Motherwell,” May 10–29, 1948, checklist no. 8.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "American Paintings since 1900 from the Permanent Collection," April 1-23, 1967, cat. no. 54, illus. (b-w).

Rocky Mount, NC, Rocky Mount Arts and Crafts Center, "Art and Education at Black Mountain College, 1933-1956," January 15-February 28, 1978, no. 35.

Asheville, NC, Asheville Art Museum, "Black Mountain College Retrospective," March 14-May 14, 1978.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, “To Be Young: Coming of Age in the Contemporary,” April 3, 2021–February 6, 2022.

Fort Worth, TX, The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, "Robert Motherwell: Pure Painting," June 4-September 17, 2023.
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