American Art Collaborative

Robert Motherwell experimented with abstract figure painting during the 1940s, creating images that resembled primitive cave drawings. Here, the textured background of chalky white and yellow ocher sets off the thick black brushstrokes. Motherwell was inspired by the psychologist Carl Jung, who wrote that creativity was an instinctive drive that comes from deep within our unconscious. Figure in Black is an abstract painting of colors and lines, but it also suggests deep-seated symbols that we do not fully understand. Motherwell devoted most of his life to working in limited color and especially enjoyed working with the “inexhaustible” mysteries of black (1977 interview by Barbaralee Diamonstein, in Arnason, Robert Motherwell, 1982)
“Perhaps I feel happiest when, during the creative process, I simply let work ‘pour out.’” Motherwell, interview by Barbaralee Diamonstein, 1977, in Arnason, Robert Motherwell, 198