I mean, the official definition of Surrealism is to make a work automatically without a priori aesthetic or moral conditions, which is exactly what we do [artist in New York School / Abstract Expressionism]. At the same time Surrealism was an assault, - with a few exceptions: Giacometti, Arp and Miro - on the 'purity' of painting. I mean mean, on making painting - means themselves speak, without reliance on literature; and that second insistence of Surrealism, Americans really rejected. So that historically.... Abstract Expressionism is in part, I think, a fusion of certain Surrealist means, above all plastic 'automatism' with the Cubist's insistence that the picture speaks as a picture in strictly pictorial language.


first published in 'Metro', 1962; as quoted in Interviews with American Artists, by David Sylvester; Chatto & Windus, London 2001, p. 82 - 'interview with David Sylvester', (1960)

Robert Motherwell Quotes

I mean, the official definition of Surrealism is to make a work automatically without a priori aesthetic or moral conditions, which is exactly what...

I mean, the official definition of Surrealism is to make a work automatically without a priori aesthetic or moral conditions, which is exactly what...

I mean, the official definition of Surrealism is to make a work automatically without a priori aesthetic or moral conditions, which is exactly what...

I mean, the official definition of Surrealism is to make a work automatically without a priori aesthetic or moral conditions, which is exactly what...