Do you see fish swimming beneath the sea? Or the freewheeling brushwork of "Abstract Expressionism?"

Robert Motherwell
American, 1915-1991
Fishes with Red Stripe
1954
Oil on paper

Lent by the Steven and Dorothea Green Collection

Robert Motherwell learned the importance of the suggestive, unconsciously telling brushstroke from the surrealist artists of the 1930s. He moved into Abstract Expressionism in the 1940s with his friends, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko.

Calligraphic gestures reminiscent of Oriental art dominate his work, suggesting both handwriting and form-such as fish seen under water. Working on a large sheet of paper with a restricted palette of black, white, and red, Motherwell works back and forth between representation and abstraction.

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