Sub-Marine

1948

Morris Louis

Painter, American, 1912 - 1962

Curving shapes in harvest and lemon yellow float against a background streaked with smoke and charcoal gray in this abstract, horizontal painting. Brushstrokes are visible throughout. Many of the yellow forms are clustered in the center of the composition, and overlaid with black outlines that together make a rough heart shape. The heart form lies on its side with the point of the heart to our right. A few more yellow forms float around this area, including a bottle-shaped form to our left. Black lines are overlaid over some of the forms but not all. One mint-green dot is connected to a yellow, planchet-like shape by a line, near the lower left corner of the painting. The artist signed and dated the painting near the lower right corner, “Louis 48.”
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Artwork overview


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

The artist; gift to Mrs. Stuart Hunter, Washington; by descent to private collection, Hillsborough, North Carolina; by descent to private collection, Maryland; purchased 19 December 2017 through (Heather James Fine Art, Palm Desert, California) by NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1949

  • Seventeenth Annual Exhibition of Maryland Artists, Baltimore Museum of Art, March-April 1949, no. 63..

  • Fourth Annual Area Exhibition, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, November-December 1949.

Bibliography

1979

  • Headley, Diane Upright. The Drawings of Morris Louis. Exh. cat. National Collection of Fine Arts (now Smithsonian American Art Museum), Washington; Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge. Washington, 1979: 56, repro.

1985

  • Upright, Diane. Morris Louis: The Complete Paintings, A Catalogue Raisonné. New York, 1985: 36, repro. 134, 194, no. 16.

Inscriptions

lower right: Louis 48

Wikidata ID

Q58699704


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