%C2%A9 Estate of George Morrison %2F Briand Morrison
Composition, 1945
George Morrisonexpand_more
Pen and black ink on off-white paperexpand_more
Gift of the family of Ade Toftey, friend of George Morrisonexpand_more 2018.89
Not on Viewexpand_more
A member of the Anishinaabe people of the Grand Portage Reservation, George Morrison was active in the New York School of Abstract Expressionism, a mid-20th-century movement of avant-garde artists who saw abstraction as the essential vehicle for conveying intense emotion and exploring the unconscious through color, form, space, and gesture. Though his work is largely non-representational, Morrison relied on observations and memories of nature for inspiration and subject matter. The present drawing is likely based on his impressions of commercial fishing nets left out to dry. At the time he made this drawing, Morrison was living in New York City, but regularly spent his summers in Cape Ann, Massachusetts, a region known for its fishing industry where he would have likely seen arrays of fishing nets. Though derived from observation, the subject of Morrison’s monochromatic drawing is the abstract interplay of line, form, space, and light mediated by his subjective interpretation.
Details
- Title
- Composition
- Artist Life
- (Grand Portage Anishinaabe), 1919 - 2000
- Role
- Artist
- Accession Number
- 2018.89
- Provenance
- The artist, New York and Minnesota, sold to Toftey; Adolf ("Ade") Toftey, Grand Marias, Minn.; by descent to Susan Hildebrand, Rice Lake, Wis.; given to MIA, 2018.
- Curator Approved
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© Estate of George Morrison / Briand Morrison