ABSTRACT
The whole impulse of Mr. Robert Motherwell's art–on the occasion at least–seems to be directed to precisely the opposite course: to restoring collage to its original position as the medium of a purely pictorial imagination. Although he occasionally employs papers that convey a certain atmosphere and association–in the show, the Gauloise cigarette wrapper is much in evidence–such materials are not really exploited for iconographic purposes. Only where the forms are relatively free in their irregularities and free of bright color and sharp contours does Mr. Motherwell seem able to sustain a high level of pictorial discourse. Mr. Motherwell remains what he has always been: both a very intelligent and a very intellectual painter, an artist highly conscious of the expressive morphology of modern art. Clearly, Mr. Motherwell's rejections have by no means been as complete or as far-reaching as those of the generation that has succeeded him.
