Morris Louis

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Morris Louis
Abstract Expressionism, Post-painterly abstraction, Washington Color School

Morris Louis Bernstein (November 28, 1912 – September 7, 1962), known professionally as Morris Louis, was an American painter. During the 1950s he became one of the earliest exponents of

Color Field painting. While living in Washington, D.C., Louis, along with Kenneth Noland and other Washington painters, formed an art movement that is known today as the Washington Color School.[1]

Early life and education

From 1929 to 1933, he studied at the Maryland Institute of Fine and Applied Arts (now Maryland Institute College of Art) on a scholarship,[2] but left shortly before completing the program. Louis worked at various odd jobs to support himself while painting, and in 1935 was president of the Baltimore Artists' Association. From 1936 to 1940, he lived in New York City and worked in the easel division of the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project.[3][4] During this period, he knew Arshile Gorky, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Jack Tworkov. He also dropped his last name.

Work

Color field painting

He returned to his native

Color Field paintings were his Unfurleds.[5]

Stain painting

All of the Color Field artists were concerned with the classic problems of pictorial space and the flatness of the picture plane. In 1953, Louis and Noland visited

tones
.

In 1954, Louis produced his mature Veil Paintings, which were characterized by overlapping, superimposed layers of transparent color poured onto and stained into sized or unsized canvas.

translucent washes through which separate colors emerge principally at the edges. Although subdued, the resulting color is immensely rich. In another series, the artist used long parallel bands and stripes of pure color arranged side by side in rainbow effects. The painting Tet
is a good example of his Veil Paintings.

The thinned acrylic paint was allowed to stain the canvas, making the pigment at one with the canvas as opposed to "on top". This conformed to Greenberg's conception of "Modernism" as it made the entire picture plane flat.[7]

Late paintings

1-33 (1962) at the National Gallery of Art in 2022

Louis destroyed many of his paintings between 1955 and 1957. He resumed work on the Veils in 1958–59. These were followed by Florals and Columns (1960), Alephs (1960), Unfurleds (1960–61)—in which rivulets of more opaque, intense color flow from both sides of large white fields of raw canvas—and finally the Stripe paintings (1961–62). Between summer 1960 and January/February 1961, he created about 150 Unfurleds, generally on mural-size canvases.[8]

Artworks (selection)

Exhibitions

A memorial exhibition of Louis' work was held at the

Washington, DC. at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
.

Art market

In 2015, a striped canvas by Louis, Number 36 (1962), from the collection of Lord Anthony and Lady Evelyn Jacobs sold for £1.5 million at Christie's London.[12]

Personal life

He married Marcella Siegel in 1947.[13][14] She supported him throughout his career and in memory of him she supported one artist every year through the Morris Louis Fellowship at George Washington University.

Death

Morris Louis was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1962 and soon after died at his home in Washington, D.C., on September 7, 1962. The cause of his illness was attributed to prolonged exposure to paint vapours.[13] The Estate of Morris Louis is represented exclusively by Diane Upright, a former professor of fine art at Harvard University.[15]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Washington Color School Movement Overview". The Art Story. Retrieved 2019-03-08.
  2. ^ "Artist Info". www.nga.gov. Retrieved 2021-01-13.
  3. ^ "Morris Louis". www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved 2021-01-13.
  4. ^ "The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation". The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation. Retrieved 2021-01-13.
  5. ^ a b Fenton, Terry. "Morris Louis". sharecom.ca. Retrieved December 8, 2008
  6. ^ Morris Louis Archived 2013-10-23 at the Wayback Machine Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.
  7. ^ Hopkins, David. After Modern Art: 1945-2000. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), p.29
  8. ^ Morris Louis, Alpha-Pi (1960) Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
  9. ^ "Beth Shin • Pérez Art Museum Miami". Pérez Art Museum Miami. Retrieved 2023-08-30.
  10. ^ "Approaching American Abstraction". SFMOMA. Retrieved 2021-03-10.
  11. ^ "Delta Eta • Pérez Art Museum Miami". Pérez Art Museum Miami. Retrieved 2023-08-30.
  12. ^ Anny Shaw (July 2, 2015), Private collections boost contemporary sales in London Archived 2015-07-03 at the Wayback Machine The Art Newspaper.
  13. ^ a b Morris Louis bio, http://www.theartstory.org/artist-louis-morris.htm
  14. ^ "Morris Louis" bio, "Morris Louis". Archived from the original on 2012-03-05. Retrieved 2011-01-31.
  15. ^ Morris Louis: Paintings, November 28 – January 19, 2007 Archived 2014-02-25 at the Wayback Machine Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York.

Sources

External links

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