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SUE SAHLMAN People | Michael Brenson Eierbrechtstrasse 56 8053 Zurich Tel. 01 53 9753 Motherwell in Munich Beginning in early November, 10 paintings of Robert Motherwell, one of the leading figures of the New York School, will be on display in perpetuity at the Bayrisch Stattsgalerie Moderner Kunst - the Bavarian State Museum of Modern Art - in Munich, West Germany. The recently completed selection covers the last 30 years of Mr. Motherwell's career and includes such large and major works as "In Plato's Cave VI," "Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 133," "A la Pintura" and one of the key paintings in the series, "Je t'Aime." The museum contains 18 galleries. According to Mr. Motherwell, six or seven are devoted to individual artists, including Max Beckmann, Paul Klee and Pablo Picasso. "I'm what they call the bridge between Europe and America," Mr. Motherwell said the other day. "The museum guaran-tees that mine will always be the last of the galleries. The sequence beginning with Fauvism and ending with me will remain the same." What is so satisfying for the artist is not just having a Motherwell room in a major museum, but having been able to play an active role in what that room would be. The selection of eight of the 10 paintings took place in Mr. Motherwell's studio, and was a collaborative effort involving the artist; Erich Steingraber, head of the Bavarian state museums, and Dieter Dube, Mr. Steingraber's assistant. "We had out about 200 pictures, moving them back and forth," Mr. Motherwell said. "After several days we got 10 pictures that could be as balanced a representation of me as it was possible to get." The person most responsible for making the Motherwell room a reality was Veith Turskey, a young German dealer now with M. Knoedler & Company in Zurich, the Swiss branch of Mr. Motherwell's gallery in New York. Mr. Turske bought "In Plato's Cave VI" several years ago, was responsible for two Motherwell gallery exhibitions in Europe and knew of the painter's wish - a wish Mr. Mother-well said he shared with "most artists of my generation" to have rooms of his work in several museums. Mr. Turske made the contact with the Bavarian State Museum of Modern Art and promised them his Motherwell. The museum also has on extended loan one of the paintings in the "Je t'Aime" series, owned by Walter Bareiss, which is a "promised gift." Those two paintings were the natural basis of the selection. The final number was decided by the size of the gallery. Along with the four 10-foot high paintings, there are several smaller works, including one large [[Image]] Detail from photograph of the ruins of Leptis Magna in Libya. The picture is in David Douglas Duncan's "The World of Allah." Thaw, a former president of the association and a dealer in "master paintings and drawings of all periods." Mr. Colin began by stating that he had made a survey and found that "the overwhelming number of our dealers had fine seasons." Some galleries, he said, among them Serge Sabarsky, Kennedy, Aquavella and Rosenberg, reported to him that last season was one of "the best years they had ever had." The association's spokesman said that last year's sales total for at least two member galleries was more than $30 million, and that another gallery turned over $14 million in contemporary work alone. They cited the recent sale of a 1912 Vuillard, "a hard picture to place," for $400,00 and the sale of a William Merrit Chase for $1.5 million, almost double the standing auction record for a Chase painting, to the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art in Fort Worth. Mr. Glimcher and Mr. Thaw then discussed their own records. "I have virtually sold out every show this year," Mr. Glimcher said. "There is less work by my artists" - who include Chuck Close, Jim Dine, Lucas Samaras, and Jean Dubuffet - "than there are clients to buy them," he said. Mr. Thaw said, "Off the top of my head, the past season I sold over 13 works of art for $1 million or more, including over 5 for more than $2 million, and a Cubist Picasso for well over $3.5 million. I don't know how many works I sold for between $200,000 and $1 million." Duncan Photographs the World of Islam
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