Susan Davidson
Curator and art historian Susan Davidson has been fascinated with Robert Motherwell’s work since her tenure at The Menil Collection, Houston (1985–2002). She curated the artist’s “Early Collages” exhibition for the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice and Solomon R. Guggenheim, New York (2013) while their Senior Curator, Collections & Exhibitions. She is currently preparing “Robert Motherwell: Pure Painting” for the Ft. Worth Modern opening June 4, 2023 and traveling to the Kunstforum Wien that autumn.
From the start of his art making practice, Robert Motherwell worked simultaneously across media, producing paintings, collages, and works on paper in near equal measure with a remarkable consistency of vocabulary. It was, however, his early engagement with paper rather than canvas where Motherwell found his confidence as an artist.
My first encounter with Walter Hopps was more characteristic of him than I realized at the time. I surely did not expect that rendezvous—such as it was—to develop into one of my most important professional friendships, let alone to offer me first-row center seat access to one of great curatorial minds of the twentieth century.