George Morrison (artist)
George Morrison (1919 – April 17, 2000) was an American landscape painter and sculptor. His Indian name was Wah Wah Teh Go Nay Ga Bo (Standing In the Northern Lights).[1]
Early life and education
A Chippewa born on the Grand Portage Indian Reservation near Chippewa City, Cook County, Minnesota, he graduated from Grand Marais High School in 1938 and then the Minnesota School of Art, now the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, in 1943.[1]
Having been chosen to receive the Van Derlip Traveling Scholarship, Morrison studied at the Art Students League from 1943 -1946 in New York City, where he became part of a circle of abstract expressionists.
In 1952 after receiving a Fulbright scholarship he studied in Paris and Antibes.[1]
Later life
He lived in Duluth, Minnesota for year and then moved back to New York City in 1954 where he became acquainted with prominent American expressionists: Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline and Jackson Pollock.[1]
He then taught in Minneapolis, Duluth, Dayton, Ohio, Ithaca (Cornell University), Pennsylvania (Penn State), and New York City.[1]
From 1963-1970 Morrison taught at the Rhode Island School of Design.[1]
Beginning in 1970 he taught American Indian studies and art at the University of Minnesota until he retired in 1983.[1]
He lived in a renovated church in Saint Paul, Minnesota with his son Briand and his wife, Hazel Belvo,[1] another Minnesota artist, who taught at Minneapolis College of Art and Design and Saint Paul Academy and is known for her series of pieces based on the Witch Tree.
During the mid-1970s, they acquired land near Grand Portage, Minnesota on Lake Superior, which they named Red Rock.[1] This became their home and studio.[1] He and Belvo divorced in 1991 but remained friends. Morrison suffered some life-threatening illnesses but kept on working until he died at Red Rock in April 2000.[1]
He is well known for wood collage sculptures and for the landscape paintings he preferred.
Selected solo exhibitions
- 1948-1960: Grand Central Moderns Gallery - New York City, NY
- 1949: Hart Gallery - Duluth, MN
- 1950: Ed Weiner Gallery - Provincetown, MA
- 1954: University of Minnesota - Duluth, MN
- 1955: Shorter College - Rome, GA
- 1957: University of Georgia - Athens, GA
- 1960: Dayton Art Institute - Dayton, OH
- 1961: Iowa State College - Cedar Falls, IA
- 1962: Cornell University - Ithaca, NY; Antioch College - Yellow Springs, OH
- 1967: Academy of Fine Arts - Lynchburg, VA
- 1973: Heard Museum - Phoenix, AZ; Amon Carter Museum of Art - Fort Worth, TX; Art Museum of South Texas - Corpus Christi, TX
- 1976: Minneapolis Institute of Arts - Minneapolis, MN; Bethel College - Saint Paul, MN
- 1978: Macalester College - Saint Paul, MN; University of Wisconsin–Stout - Menomonie, WI; Carl N. Gorman Museum, University of California - Davis, CA
- 1983: University of Minnesota - University Art Museum, Minneapolis, MN
- 1984: “George Morrison: Paper Collages,” Tweed Museum of Art - University of Minnesota, Duluth, MN;
- 1987-1988: “Horizon: Small Painting Series 1980-87,” Minnesota Museum of American Art - St. Paul, MN
- 1990: “Standing in the Northern Lights: George Morrison, A retrospective,” circ., Tweed Museum of Art - University of Minnesota, Duluth and the Minnesota Museum of Art, St Paul, MN.
- 1998: "Morrison's Horizon," Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program, Minneapolis, MN
- 2010: "From the Minnesota Museum of American Art", Bockley Gallery, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Notes
General references
- H. H. Arnason, History of Modern Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Photography. 3rd ed. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1986.
- Joseph Bruchac, The Heye Center Opens in Manhattan with Three Exhibitions of Native Arts, (Smithsonian v25 n7 p. 40–49 Oct 1994) ISSN 0037-7333 OCLC 93642777
- William Rubin, "Arshile Gorky, Surrealism and the New American Painting," In Henry Geldzahler, New York painting and sculpture: 1940–1970, (New York, Dutton 1969.) OCLC 45703 pp. 372–402
- W. Jackson Rushing, Native American art and the New York avant-garde : a history of cultural primitivism, (Austin : University of Texas Press, 1995.) ISBN 0292755473 9780292755475
- Marika Herskovic, American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s An Illustrated Survey, (New York School Press, 2003.) ISBN 0-9677994-1-4
- Smithsonian Institution Research Information System; Archival, Manuscript and Photographic Collections, George Morrison
External links