Acrylic paint applied in fields of black and golden yellow, gradating to rusty orange, around canvas. Swathes of gray and white over portions of the yellow and orange areas in the lower half of the canvas. Grease pencil is seen over these lighter colors in not particular pattern, curving and scribbled.

Study in Automatism

Robert Motherwell

Date: 1976-1977

Object Type: Painting

Material/Technique: acrylic paint; grease pencil; canvas

Dimensions: 16 H x 20 W in

Accession No: 1994.38

Credit Line: Museum purchase and Gift of the Dedalus Foundation


Description: Promoted by the European surrealists, automatism – or “psychic automatism,” as the French writer André Breton initially called it in The Manifesto of Surrealism (1924) – ostensibly provided access to an individual’s unconscious. If effective, automatism would enable the visual artist to produce images and gestures both personal and original, uncensored by style or other rational frameworks. During World War II, a number of surrealists found safe haven in New York. There they encountered the circle of young American artists who, after the war, would become known as the abstract expressionists. Most members of this group enthusiastically embraced automatism. Formally schooled in philosophy and fascinated by psychology, Robert Motherwell became especially engaged in discussions about the theoretical and practical potential of automatism. Throughout his career, which began in the early 1940s, Motherwell spoke eloquently and wrote lucidly about the importance of automatism to his own work and to modern art in general. He expressed his commitment to the concept in a 1978 letter to Edward Henning, then curator of modern art at the Cleveland Museum of Art: “I believe it is the most powerful creative principle – unless collage is – consciously developed in twentieth-century art. The intelligent and honest use of it can only lead to the originality and to, of course, the limitations of one’s own beingness.” In the margins of that letter, Motherwell commented that collage – the assemblage of disparate elements – might be as important as automatism, since it “is also partly free-association” and therefore includes its own elements of automatism. Those words, written a year after he completed Study in Automatism, illuminate Motherwell’s intent. In the work, dense areas of flat black paint abut zones of ochre and pale blue, across which drawn black lines curve and cut. The combined effect evokes collage: numerous gestures intuitively pieced and layered together. Written for the exhibition, Art of Our Time (April 24, 2010 - August 8, 2010).

Exhibitions: Bare It All, Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita, 08/27/2026 With, Not For: Centering Community, Connection, and Identity, Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita, 01/22/2026 - 05/02/2026 Co-Lab Pt. 3 - Homegrown, Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita, 01/23/2025 - 08/02/2025 Deep Dive: Selections from the Permanent Collection, Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita, 05/26/2022 - 07/30/2022 Art of Our Time, 04/24/2010 - 08/08/2010 Surrealism: Dreams on Canvas, 05/26/2007 - 08/12/2007 Connecting the Past to the Present (rotation two), 07/10/2002 - 02/10/2003 Connecting the Past to the Present (rotation one), 01/10/2002 - 07/10/2002 Selections from the WSU Foundation Art Collection, 02/05/2001 - 01/02/2002 Twenty-Five Years of Collecting, 12/04/1999 - 01/09/2000 Poets and Painters, 06/07/1997 - 09/07/1997 Myth and Ritual, 06/25/1989 - 07/15/1989