‘Between Life and Death: Robert Motherwell’s Elegies’

Somewhere between San Francisco and Spain, reality and fantasy and, yes, life and death lie the 13 works og Robert Motherwell’s “Elegies to the Spanish Republic” series, on exhibit through March 6 at the de Young Museum.

The set the Bay Area-bred Motherwell down the political and artistic path toward this series, as did the poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca, from which the title “At Five in the Afternoon” was drawn, and Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica,” which hovers over these imposing jet verticals and violently constrained black ovals.

All of which make for a pungent glimpse into the artist’s passions — and despair at the rise of fascism in Spain — on the centennial of Motherwell’s birth.

De Young Museum, Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, S.F. (415) 750-3600. www.deyoungmuseum.org.