Tuesday Tunes: A Playlist for Robert Motherwell

Posted on April 10, 2018 by Experiment Station

Taking inspiration from the major theme of music in Ten Americans: After Paul Klee, we paired 11 staff members with 11 works from the exhibition and asked them to respond to create a playlist in response to their individual artwork. Zuzana Jurisova, Education Coordinator, created this playlist in response to Robert Motherwell’s “Figure in Black (Girl with Stripes).”

Robert Motherwell, Figure in Black (Girl with Stripes), 1947, Oil on paper on fiberboard, 24 x 19 7/8 in. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC, Gift of the Dedalus Foundation and museum purchase © Dedalus Foundation, Inc./Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

When I looked at Figure in Black (Girl with Stripes) by Robert Motherwell, I immediately thought of a traveler, an adventurer that is undertaking a voyage to an undiscovered land. I was struck by the fact that the figure in the painting is a girl and shown seemingly alone in the work, but unafraid. The songs I have chosen reflect a journey (both physically and within one’s self) from dissatisfaction (Running Up That Hill, Sprawl II) and the thrill of embarking on an adventure (Verdis Quo, Walking on a Dream). I finished the playlist with Yellow by Coldplay as Motherwell was heavily influenced by the ocher color of his childhood in California and the song also feels like a homecoming of sorts.

Zuzana Jurisova, Education Coordinator

Feeling inspired? Create your own playlist based around works in the exhibition and send it to us at communications@phillipscollection.org and we may feature it on our blog and social media.

Automatic Writing as Artistic Tool

Posted on April 5, 2018 by Experiment Station

Bradley Walker Tomlin, Number 12–1949, 1949, Oil on canvas, 32 1/4 x 31 1/4 in., Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Gift of Abby and B. H. Friedman in honor of John I. H. Baur

Just a few years before he painted this luminous composition, Bradley Walker Tomlin met Adolph Gottlieb and other leading Abstract Expressionists. The close relationships he forged with them influenced his shift from a Cubist style toward a more calligraphic, expressive language exemplified by Number 12. For this canvas, painted while Tomlin was sharing a studio with Robert Motherwell, he used the method of automatic writing to arrive at gestural calligraphic forms that float against a mystical yellow background.

Phillips Collection founder Duncan Phillips admired Tomlin’s work precisely because of its “interplay of an ordered formalism and spontaneous, expressive gesture.” Paul Klee’s art strove to marry the same principles. Number 12 combines curved arabesques with flat, ribbon-like forms; the latter became a hallmark of his mature style, as seen in Number 9, on view nearby in the Ten Americans exhibition.

This work is on view in Ten Americans: After Paul Klee through May 6, 2018.

Tuesday Tunes: A Playlist for Mark Tobey

Posted on April 3, 2018 by Experiment Station

Taking inspiration from the major theme of music in Ten Americans: After Paul Klee, we paired 11 staff members with 11 works from the exhibition and asked them to respond to create a playlist in response to their individual artwork. Caitlin Meredith, Phillips Music Coordinator created this playlist in response to Mark Tobey’s “Night Flight.”

As I studied Night Flight by Mark Tobey, I saw many repetitive strokes and lines, that once repeated, began to morph into different shapes. This visual aspect is akin to the fugue, a compositional technique in which a melodic line is introduced and repeated by different voices, at which point the interwoven voices begin to develop into something new. For my playlist, I have chosen four pieces that have prominent examples of fugue-like material: two pieces by the king of the fugue, J.S. Bach, and two by more contemporary artists Sylvan Esso and Bon Iver. I hope as you listen you may be able to hear and visualize the repetitive fugue-like sonorities.

Caitlin Meredith, Phillips Music Coordinator

Feeling inspired? Create your own playlist based around works in the exhibition and send it to us at communications@phillipscollection.org and we may feature it on our blog and social media.