Motherwell received his Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy at Stanford. He decided to pursue a Ph.D. in the subject, but after one year transferred to Columbia to study art history under influential art historian Meyer Shapiro. Motherwell developed an affinity for writing and over his career wrote numerous articles both on his own work and on art theory. He was a constant promoter of abstract expressionism. Of the movement he said, “Its painting is not interested in giving information, propaganda, description, or anything that might be called (to use words loosely) of practical use.� Instead he insisted that “the emergence of abstract art is one sign that there are still men able to assert feeling in the world. Men who know how to respect and follow their inner feelings, no matter how irrational or absurd they may first appear…The need is for felt experience—intense, immediate, direct, subtle, unified, warm, vivid, rhythmic.� For Motherwell, the goal of the abstract expressionists was not to convey a social, allegorical, or realist message but instead to promote the individual artistic self with the hope of connecting the viewer to the artist and his process.

Motherwell painted Mural Fragment in 1950. Initially the work was meant to be a large mural spanning sixty-six feet. The Samuel M. Kootz Gallery in New York commissioned it, intending to place it within an Architects Collaborative project. At the time, Kootz was very interested in merging modern architecture and art to create new aesthetic environments. In 1950, Kootz devised a project in which five groups of architects would pair up with five artists to create public spaces in which the architecture worked in conjunction with large-scale murals. Kootz said the project was intended “to encourage the use of modern artists by architects and builders.� Kootz believed that creative architecture demanded modern art and sculpture in order to fully realize the new vision and purpose of modern buildings.

Motherwell was paired with the Architects Collaborative, directed by Walter Gropius. Gropius designed a school but ran over budget when the building was constructed. To save money, Gropius decided not to include Motherwell’s mural. Instead, Katherine Ordway, a tireless collector of modern art and heiress to the 3M Corporation, purchased the completed Mural Fragment. She donated Mural Fragment to the University of Minnesota in 1951.

Mural Fragment consists of three panels, each eight feet by four feet. Motherwell chose to use a limited palette of black, ochre, green, yellow, and cream. In the work, he painted black vertical strips that visibly mark the three separate panels, yet at the same time bind the panels together through their uniformity. The spaces between the black strips are filled with geometric blocks of color, creating a feeling of underlying horizontality. Motherwell wove color through the work, with cream sections overlapping ochre sections and yellow patches barely showing through. In contrast to these hard shapes are curvilinear, free forms; Motherwell painted uneven, soft-lined circles and half-circles which seem to float within the color blocks. A figure with six rounded projections, almost like a flower, takes over the left side of the painting. Motherwell stabilized these automatist shapes within the painting by their color – they repeat the black, ochre and cream already found within the work.

Mural Fragment displays early signs of what would later become Motherwell’s signature visual language. The automatist marks in Mural Fragment are motifs he would further develop. Throughout the painting, the artist’s brushstroke remains clearly visible; the viewer can even discern how wide his brushes were. Motherwell allowed paint to mix together and to show through other layers. For example, the demi-circles on the right side of the painting show streaks of black coming through the yellow. Up close, parts of the painting seem rough and unfinished: the left side reveals bits of composition board not covered by paint. These techniques demonstrate Motherwell’s processes and decisions instead of hiding them.

The painting is an important work in Motherwell’s oeuvre, but early on the work was met with much criticism at the University of Minnesota. In 1956, Mural Fragment was loaned to University of Minnesota–Duluth to be displayed in the new student center. Upon its arrival, students and faculty circulated a petition to have the painting removed, stating that “it is a poor example of modern art…We feel a better example of modern art could have been selected, rather than this crude daub that looks like a deformed octopus alongside of two decayed dinosaur eggs.� The protestors felt that a total of three hundred signatures should be enough to convince the gallery director, Fred Triplett, to remove the painting. Triplett addressed the issue in a letter to a colleague: “The controversy over the Motherwell continues to rage with unabated fury. Two of our more enlightened and informed professors, who suddenly find themselves to be authorities on abstract expressionism, are currently circling a petition to have Mural Fragment removed…I haven’t had so much fun in years, and even the absurdity of the situation seems, somehow, to be humorous.� Ultimately, Triplett and the school provost refused to have the painting removed on the grounds that to do so based on “emotionalism� of the students would invite “all sorts of book burning.�

Feelings about the piece have shifted today, as the Motherwell holds a position of honor in the Weisman’s permanent collection gallery. A recent jazz compilation CD highlighting the music of Duke Ellington displayed Mural Fragment on its front cover. The use of Motherwell’s painting on the cover of a jazz CD brings up a set of connections between the aesthetics of abstract expressionism and the lyricism of jazz music. Jazz embodies many of the philosophical idioms of abstract expressionism, but applied to a performance movement. The role of improvisation in jazz can be likened to that of automatism in art: the musician plays what he feels, creating a specific moment of shared experience between the audience and musician, much as the artist creates that moment between the viewer and self when he freely puts down a mark on the canvas. Both movements stress the importance of the “individual voice� – a reminder that the work is distinctly that of the artist, encompassing his experiences and emotions. Motherwell created a beautiful portrait of this in an interview from 1983. He said:

"A few years ago, I was standing next to one of my huge black and white pictures in a museum gallery, and a middle-aged man approached me and asked what the picture was about, what it ‘meant’…I realized that that picture had been painted over several times and radically changed, in shape, balances, and weights…I realized there were about ten thousand brush strokes in it, and that each brush stroke is a decision. It is not only a decision of aesthetics—will this look more beautiful?—but a decision that concerns one’s inner I...It has to do with one’s sense of life…It has to do with one’s own inner sense of weights: I happen to be a heavy, clumsy, awkward man, and if something gets too airy, even though I might admire it very much, it doesn’t feel like my self, my I."

Jazz music, much like abstract expressionist painting, is an uninhibited expression of the artistic self. It reflects qualities of that person – individual preferences, tastes, and decisions. For the producers of Ellington’s CD, Motherwell’s Mural Fragment visually symbolizes the qualities found in jazz.

Motherwell’s Mural Fragment encountered growing pains as its vision and ownership changed hands rapidly. The painting devolved from a sixty-six foot behemoth to a more modest twelve-foot mural. As it found its home at the University, the public met it with criticism and rejection, much like many paintings of its type at the time. As understanding of abstract expressionism has evolved and the movement has gained wider appreciation, Mural Fragment has come to be a cherished addition to the Weisman collection. And today it still serves its original purpose, inspiring students and the general public to allow a work of art to speak to them in a private, personal way.

—Katie Johnson