Matta-Duchamp

“Yes. The first surrealist I met and the only one who
was close to my age was Matta. He was the most energetic,
enthusiastic, poetic, charming, brilliant young artist
that I’ve ever met. This would have been the spring
of 1941. We tend to forget, in thinking about this period,
that it was the end of the Depression. The war was
about to begin; it had already begun in Europe. Most
of the artists of my generation nearly had been on the
WPA, at $25 a week, or whatever it was. The WPA was
heavily socially oriented; and those few artists who were
attracted to modern art or abstract art had a rough time.
None had recognition. Most were poor, depressed, with
considerable feelings of hopelessness, but determined
nevertheless to carry on, in their respective aspirations.
For an enthusiastic person like Matta to appear –
this had an extremely important catalytic effect. (Matta
and I were both “foreigners” to the New York painting
scene. Matta came from a different world, while I, an
American, had never been forced to endure what my
colleagues had.)”
Robert Motherwell
Interview with Sidney Simon: “Concerning the Beginnings
of the New York School: 1939-1943” January 1967, pp. 158-159,
in Stephanie Terenzio (ed.): The Collected Writings of Robert
Motherwell, Oxford University Press, Oxford/New York 1992
( 71 )