Yellow Envelope

Robert Motherwell, both an artist and a writer, once said that his collages incorporated “bits of the everyday world,” as in "Yellow Envelope." The work includes remnants of a beer bottle label and a French cigarette carton, in addition to various torn papers. "Yellow Envelope" is a reworking of a previous collage made by the artist, originally titled Löwenbräu, the brand of German beer referenced here. Motherwell, an admirer of French Symbolist and Surrealist poetry, inscribed a few words quoted from the poet Paul Éluard. The artist also pasted a torn fragment from a French arts publication featuring the words "L’aventure de l’art abstrait" (“the adventure of abstract art”). These layers of found objects establish a composition that is at once formally complex as well as personal.