This document appeared in Robert Motherwell: A Centennial Celebration, an exhibition organized by Archives of American Art and curated by Tim Clifford, guest curator.
This document appeared in Robert Motherwell: A Centennial Celebration, an exhibition organized by Archives of American Art and curated by Tim Clifford, guest curator.
Danto's letter is one of a pair that documents the beginning correspondence and friendship that is one of the more notable of Motherwell's last decade. When the 1983 retrospective exhibition reached its final venue, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in late 1984, it was reviewed by Arthur C. Danto for the Nation magazine in the January 19, 1985 issue. Motherwell wrote Danto on February 20 that he had been "haunted" by the review "haunted on many levels, from the shock of recognition that, after 40 years of publicly exhibiting, someone finally grasped what I am about." Danto replied to Motherwell, "Your letter was certainly a marvelous reward. I have never received anything like it."
However, the letters are not just pleasantries as the philosopher/art critic and the former philosophy student turned artist engage in a spirited back and forth with respect to Danto's reading of Motherwell's canvas In Plato's Cave (1973).