The former Connecticut estate of the late artist Robert Motherwell was sold for $2.5 million this month, Christie’s International Real Estate brokerage announced in a news release on Thursday.
Located at 909 North Street in Greenwich, the home was constructed in 1900. The 10-bedroom, six bathroom estate sits on a four-acre lot with a pond and boasts landscaping designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, who worked on New York’s Central Park, reported the Greenwich Times. Motherwell set up different studios for different modes of production (painting, collage, printmaking) throughout the 13,312 square foot property.
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The artist initially moved to Greenwich in 1970 and lived at the property until his death in 1991. He began living there full-time beginning in the fall of 1971 after his divorce with fellow artist Helen Frankenthaler is finalized. Prior to that, Motherwell lived in France and Spain, where he was inspired by political events like the Spanish Civil War as expressed in his painting series “Elegies to the Spanish Republic” (1948–67).
Motherwell was an American Abstract Expressionist artist and one of the youngest of the New York School, which also included such artists as Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko. Motherwell was known for his use of saturated hues and bold brushstrokes and materials. Upon his move to Connecticut, Motherwell became more focused on printmaking, and it was during this era that he produced a number of suites in this mode. He would also continue to make large-scale paintings for the rest of his career, including a major commission for the National Gallery of Art’s East Building, which was completed in 1978.
Motherwell’s canvases are hallmarks of permanent collections of major museums such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Tate in London, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and others. In 1981, Motherwell founded the Dedalus Foundation to support “the public understanding of modern art” through fellowships for advanced degrees and awards for graduating high school students.