Robert Motherwell's Drunk With Turpentine series, created in 1979, is a notable collection within his prolific body of work. These pieces, executed in oil on paper, are distinctive for their use of automatism, a method Motherwell adopted from his early interactions with Surrealist artists, which emphasizes spontaneous and subconscious creation. This approach became a lifelong creative principle for Motherwell, profoundly influencing his work across various series throughout his career (The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth) (The Museum of Modern Art).
The Drunk With Turpentine series comprises nearly one hundred works, initiated with the first fifteen oil on paper paintings in 1979. This series is part of a broader creative period where Motherwell explored and expanded upon the themes and techniques that had defined his career. His work from this era reflects a deep engagement with the materials and processes of painting, where the fluidity of turpentine-thinned oil paint allowed Motherwell to explore the dynamics of form, space, and the emotive potential of color and gesture (The Dedalus Foundation).
Throughout his career, Motherwell's work engaged with series-based explorations, often revisiting and reinterpreting themes, motifs, and processes across different contexts. The Drunk With Turpentine series is an example of this practice, showcasing his interest in the interaction between the physical properties of his materials and the abstract expressions these interactions could yield. Motherwell's exploration of automatism within this series is reflective of his broader interest in Surrealism and the subconscious processes of creativity (The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth).
Moreover, the influence of the Drunk With Turpentine series extended into other areas of Motherwell's work, informing subsequent series and individual pieces. For instance, his work in Provincetown during the summer of 1979, which included large paintings showing the influence of this series, suggests the pervasive impact of the techniques and aesthetic considerations explored through Drunk With Turpentine (The Dedalus Foundation).
For Motherwell, series like Drunk With Turpentine were not just about exploring a specific theme or technique but were deeply connected to his philosophical and artistic inquiries into the nature of abstraction, the expressive possibilities of paint, and the role of the artist's subconscious in the creative process. These works exemplify Motherwell's contribution to Abstract Expressionism and his enduring interest in the dialogue between spontaneity and intention, between the materiality of the medium and the abstraction of form and color (The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth) (The Museum of Modern Art) (The Dedalus Foundation).
For those interested in delving deeper into Motherwell's work and his contributions to modern art, institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Dedalus Foundation, which is dedicated to preserving his legacy, offer extensive collections and resources (The Museum of Modern Art) (The Dedalus Foundation).