Père Ubu

This large painting on paper draws on Motherwell’s appreciation for surrealist automatism, a practice that uses spontaneous marks to create shapes. Occasionally, as in this work, Motherwell introduced text. Here the words "Pere Ubu" handwritten across the center of the composition refer to the main character in Alfred Jarry’s absurdist play Ubu Roi (1896). Along with Motherwell’s preferred palette at the time of dark yellow ochres, blues, and whites, the painting has a high horizon line, all qualities shared by his contemporaneous Summertime in Italy series made in the Italian seaside town of Alassio where he and his wife, artist Helen Frankenthaler, rented a house near the shore with views of the Mediterranean. In referencing Jarry’s titular character, Motherwell not only followed in the footsteps of the Dadaists and Surrealists, who had similarly found a touchstone in the French writer’s work, but also referenced his own prior engagement with the French writer’s work: a piece by Jarry published in the second issue of the short-lived publication Possibilities　that Motherwell co-edited (1947–50).