Chez Motherwell, 1967

Helen Frankenthaler and husband Robert Motherwell's living room from the article "Artists as Collectors", in the November/December 1967 issue of Art in America.

My caption is "Wow, look at that", but here are the original captions:

(Top) Living room in Mr. and Mrs. Robert Motherwell's brownstone, with Mrs. Motherwell (painter Helen Frankenthaler) seated at far end of room. A Mark Rothko oil hangs over the fireplace. The objects on the mantel include an Archaic Greek head (center), a painted wood Egyptian standing woman, about 1350 B.C., and a Thai bronze walking Buddha. On the white-topped table is a small David Smith bronze, 1961-62. The large blue and white painting is Hlen Frankenthaler's Blue Tide, 1964. On the lamp stand next to the sofa is Jacques Lipchitz' bronze study for Ploumanach. Above the sofa are two paintings by Motherwell: America Cup, 1964, and Figure 4 with a Blue Stripe, 1966. Among the objects on the coffee table are bronzes by Rodin (left) and Matisse (right). The painting on the right wall is Motherwell's The Homely Protestant, 1948.
 (Above): A corner at the Motherwell's. The painting in center is Helen Frankenthaler's Small's Paradise, 1964; below it, on table, is a South Indian stone female figure, Pala period. At left is Barbara Cohen's Yellow Rest, 1966; directly above the Cohen is Kenneth Noland's Seed, 1962, topped by a Hans Hofmann from the fifties. Flanking the Hofmann is an African Baga wooden mask. A wooden Polynesian paddle rests on the floor.
Photos by William Grigsby.

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Barn

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My Karma Ran Over My Dogma

Some favorites from the collection.

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The things they carried

Never able to pass up an interesting bag at a yard sale, we've accumulated kind of a lot, especially of the canvas/tote variety. Most are kept in the car (ostensibly) to make grocery shopping more fun, and to convince Linda that they're actually useful and we should probably keep buying them, unlike the giant leather gladstone bags she's put the kibosh on.

1. An old heavy canvas workhorse, stencilled "Dennet's Wood-Yard", used for hauling coal way back when, with convenient handles on the bottom for dumping everything out. Soon to be filled with wooden blocks.

2. L.L. Bean zippered duffles. At one time we had about 14 of these, my reasoning being that at some conceivable point years from now, it would be fun to send our conceivable son off on a hypothetical Boy Scout trip and outfit the whole Troop with old Bean duffles, but realistically when that day comes I'm sure he'd rather have a Transformers backpack, or whatever's popular, or at least a normal hands-free backpack (which we also have...), or, ideally, take one of these and and sew Lego: The Movie patches all over it.

3. An old Liddesdale (Scotland) Creel. This was at a stoop sale, and the woman who had it said "Oh I used to use that all the time back when everybody had those!" I didn't ask, but I assumed it was the late 70's Stephanie Powers/William Holden-early Banana Republic-Safari time.

4. Museum of Modern Art bag. Probably from the same time period as above. The leather band goes all the way around, and the stitching has come loose, so it acts interestingly like a canvas totebag in a leather sling.

5. The big bag is an old LL Bean boat-and-tote, watertight for filling with ice or bailing out your sinking ship. This one is from the 60's and stiffened in this shape from years of salt water interaction. In front of it is a neat compartmentalized tote, specifically for going out in risky weather. Like our unpictured collection of "Le Bag"s and old Channel 13 (Herb Lubalin) totes, we're fans of type on bags, and "raincoat" in Hot Dog font was too funny. Lastly a well-worn denim and leather bag made in 1960's Massachusetts.

6. Tracey Emin's "This Way Mice" (there's a cat on the other side) tote bag from the 2007 Venice Biennial, thoughtfully brought back by our friend Fidi.

Finally, a nice article by Zachary Sachs about Dmitri Siegel's enlightening article on Design Observer about the proliferation of canvas tote bags. Here.

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Soul Power

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Vertical Type

These were collected more for their type treatments than anything practical, although you never know when we'll need to map out a family cross-country ski trip.

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belt buckles

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Locd of the Rings

Keep on Tolkien!

I can't even explain why I have so many of these.

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sunglasses collection

Since the the beginning of time I’ve been collecting sunglasses. In honor of spring I’m posting my collection. Despite losing my first pair ever to a high school crush (Shane, if your reading this, I’d LOVE to have my Oakly Frogskins with the fire lenses back!) i’ve been lucky enough to still have pretty much every pair I’ve owned. The collection continues to grow, not only do I find new ones all the time but I rarely pay more then a couple of dollars per pair. About a year ago John & I bought a lot of 80’s Iski and Jean-Claude Killy Bolle’ sunglasses at a defunct 5-and-Dime (last 3 columns on far left). Pin It