Art historian Katy Rogers of the Dedalus Foundation joins Edouard Kopp, the Menil Drawing Institute’s Chief Curator, and Joseph N. Newland, the Menil Collection’s Director of Publishing, for a discussion about the making of the catalogue raisonné devoted to Robert Motherwell’s drawings. The program is held in conjunction with the Menil’s opening of "Robert Motherwell Drawing: As Fast as the Mind Itself."

About the publication:

The drawings of Robert Motherwell (1915–1991) are critical to understanding his larger career, but they have been underexplored in scholarship. This long-awaited publication is the first comprehensive compilation of Motherwell’s drawings. During a career that lasted half a century, Motherwell, one of the preeminent artists of the Abstract Expressionist movement, created a large and varied body of work. He employed a broad range of imagery, inventing, refining, and reinventing his signature motifs. Drawing, which Motherwell described as “perhaps the only medium as fast as the mind itself,” was crucial to his output.

This two-volume catalogue raisonné includes works from private collections never before seen by the public, as well as works from public collections worldwide. The first volume explores the significance of drawing throughout Motherwell’s career and illuminates how his drawings both inform and are distinct from his work in other media; it also includes a detailed bibliography and exhibition history of the drawings. The second volume illustrates and thoroughly documents his 1,413 known drawings.

About the speaker:

Katy Rogers is the Programs Director and Director of the Robert Motherwell Catalogue Raisonné project at the Dedalus Foundation. She is the author of the catalogue raisonné of Motherwell’s drawings (Yale University Press, 2022). She is a co-author of the catalogue raisonné of Motherwell’s paintings and collages (Yale University Press, 2012), and of Robert Motherwell: 100 Years (Skira, 2015). She has published and lectured widely on issues related to catalogues raisonnés, artist-endowed foundations, and Motherwell, with her work appearing most recently in the Archives of American Art Journal, Art Libraries Journal, Gagosian Quarterly, and a chapter in Bridging Communities through Socially Engaged Art (Routledge, 2019).

Visit menil.org/events to learn more about upcoming programs.

Public Program of The Menil Collection, Houston, TX. November 18, 2022.