series, which eventually grew to more than 250 paintings and works on paper. As with many artists and intellectuals of the day, Motherwell was deeply troubled by the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War, in many respects a dress rehearsal for World War II, and by the subsequent atrocities and oppression from Spanish Gen. Francisco Franco’s regime.
With more varied geometries and more emphasis on color, a number of paintings from the mid-1940s seem playful, even unashamedly decorative.Summer vacations in Spain, France and Italy in 1958 and 1960 with Motherwell’s new wife, fellow artist Helen Frankenthaler, yielded new openness and color — even experimentation with Frankenthaler’s smearing effects with paint thinned by turpentine. Summers in Italy and Provincetown, Mass., inspired bold gestures evocative of waves and swimmers.