Robert Motherwell and the New York School: Storming the Citadel

Because Robert Motherwell checked in as one of the last living Abstract Expressionists just prior to his death in July 1991, that passing seemed to signal the end of an era. The period in which Motherwell peaked was one shaped not only by him, but by Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Mark Rothko and many others of the same school - a movement characterized by a revolutionary attempt to upend the conventions of American painting, and of art that exhibited immediate influence by such global events as the Spanish Civil War and the launch of the Works Progress Administration. The documentary Robert Motherwell & the New York School: Storming the Citadel draws on such resources as archival footage and photos, and interviews with art legends including William Rubin, Philip Pavia and Larry Rivers to both etch out a biographical profile of Motherwell and relay the broader history of the Abstract Expressionist movement as a whole.