George L.K. Morris

George Lovett Kingsland Morris (1905-1975) was an American artist, writer, and editor who advocated for an "American abstract art" during the 1930s and 1940s, and is best known for his Cubist sculptures and paintings.^[1]

Early life

Morris was born in New York in 1905 to a privileged family. He attended Groton, and graduated from Yale University in 1928. From 1928-29 he studied at the Arts Students League, before traveling to Paris in 1929 with Albert Gallatin. In Paris, he studied with Fernand Léger and Amédee Ozenfant.^[2] While in Paris, he became a confirmed abstractionist, and continued writing and publishing on modern movements upon his return to New York.^[1]

Career

During World War II, Morris worked for a naval architect's firm as a draftsman. After 1947, he began writing less and focused primarily on painting and sculpture. He was also a founding member of the American Abstract Artists, serving as president of the group in the 1940s.

Although Morris exhibited frequently during the 1930s and 1940s, his paintings and sculpture received greatest recognition after the war. He remaining a dedicated practitioner of his own form of Cubism, even as colleagues and friends turned to expressionism in the postwar era.^[1]

Morris died in Stockbridge, Massachusetts in 1975.

Legacy

His artworks appear in numerous museum collections, including The Phillips Collection and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

In 2014 Harry Holtzman and L.K. Morris, two founding members of the American Abtract Artists are paired in an intimate 2-man exhibit, curated by Kinney Frelinghuysen and Madalena Holtzman, and designed to evoke an informal conversation between the two artists. George L.K. Morris Harry Holtzman Pioneers of American Modernism: Points of Contact. Essays by T. Kinney Frelinghuysen, Madalena Holtzman, Wietse Coppes. Catalogue published on the occasion of the exhibition from June 26 to October 12, 2014 at the Frelinghuysen Morris House & Studio Lenox MA. This exhibition marks also the beginning of a collaboration between the Estates of George L.K. Morris and Harry Holtzman, with support of the RKD - Netherlands Institute for Art History. The collaboration aims at sharing, editing and exhibiting new historical materials related and connected to the world of abstract art of the seminal period of the 30's and 40's in Europe and in the USA. For this reason in this first show will be present also the works of other European protagonists of the time like Jean Hélion, Cesar Domela, and Ben Nicholson. A project, that duly enlarged and in the details curated will be evolving into a wider exhibition initiative.^[3][4]

References