Robert Motherwell, “Open”

Robert Motherwell was a noted figure of the New York School (a term he coined), an associate of the Abstract Expressionists whose own work, with its echoes of Matisse, was more formally stylish than sturm und drang. During the late ’60s and early ’70s, he tacked toward Minimalism, with mostly monochromatic canvases livened by three lines drawn at right angles to depict a rectangle missing one side—open, in other words, as in Motherwell’s title. Evoking a dialectical dance between exterior and interior, these forms sometimes hug the top of the composition, or drift across the surface like rafts on a placid lake of color.