Lot Essay
“The Modernist critical act, accomplished by the most serious artists and writers of our own century, involved not only getting rid of the worn-out baggage of officially acceptable art, but also, conversely and more positively, a new investigation into what constitutes art as art; and therefore of what constitutes reality as we know it.” (R. Motherwell interviewed by J. Flam, 1982, in J. Flam, Motherwell, New York, 1991, p. 13)