Talks & Conversations

Gallery Talk—Artist George A. Morton on John Singer Sargent 

How might historical American art inspire contemporary artists and visitors today? Join award-winning artist George A. Morton in our newly reimagined American galleries for a talk about the influence of John Singer Sargent on his creative practice. He will be in conversation with Sarah Cash, associate curator and acting head of American and British paintings. 

George A. Morton

artist

George A. Morton specializes in classical drawing, painting, and filmmaking. While serving a 10-year sentence in federal prison in his 20s, Morton nurtured his craft and unique artistic ability, rigorously studying the classical-realist tradition of Renaissance painters. After his release, Morton attended the Florence Academy of Art, where he received awards for best figure drawing and best portrait drawing, and was the first Black student to obtain a degree. In 2019, he founded Atelier South, which offers classical studio art training to students of all levels in Atlanta. His work was exhibited in Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration at MoMA PS1 (2020–2021). Morton also co-created the Emmy Award-winning autobiographical documentary Master of Light (2022). The film earned honors at the SXSW Film Festival, Sheffield Doc Fest, and San Francisco International Film Festival, and was acquired by HBO. He is also the founder of More Light, a nonprofit that merges classical mastery with trauma-informed pedagogy across correctional institutions, HBCUs, and museums.  

 

Morton is a participant in the second year of the For Freedoms residency, produced by the Corcoran/National Gallery partnership, designed as a Civic Arts Lab, an active space for civic and cultural inquiry and collective experimentation. Rooted in a spirit of collaboration, the Lab invites ongoing dialogue and creative practice that explore the intersections of artistic expression and civic life. Through participatory engagements and open-ended exploration, the Lab is a site for testing ideas and nurturing new ways of thinking, making, and being together. 

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A sky streaked with azure blue stretches over a gray landscape in this surreal, vertical painting. The sky and land meet halfway up the canvas at a series of short, sharp, charcoal-gray peaks, like canine teeth. Small, diffuse, butter-yellow ovals waft above the peaks. Nine fluffy, cotton-ball like shapes cast narrow shadows across the gray-streaked plane. Three amorphous shapes float over the land closer to us. A ginger-brown, drippy form is to our left, a teal-green, bean-shaped object surrounded with fuzzy white tentacles is to our right, and a peacock-blue, L-shaped drip floats in the distance near the horizon. Thinly painted white and gray lines squiggle or sweep onto the canvas from the left edge. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower right, “Yves Tanguy 29.”

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Sheer, vertical, cliffs, brightly lit in cream white and rust orange by the low sun, tower over a band of people riding horses into the distance in this long, horizontal landscape painting. The glowing cliffs dominate the upper right quadrant of the painting. They lighten from burnt orange along the jagged tops to flame orange down the steep sides, and are and warm, parchment white near the earth. One tall, narrow promontory to our right looms over a range of lower, rounded cliffs. As the cliffs move into the distance, they are shrouded with a lavender-purple haze. The land closest to us dips into a shallow valley at the bottom center of the composition, leading away from us. The dirt-packed earth is dotted with pine-green, scrubby bushes and vegetation and a grove of low, gnarled trees a short distance to our right. One chestnut-brown horse walks along the path at the bottom center of the composition, lagging behind a cluster of at least two dozen horses and riders winding into the distance. The horses range from ivory white to tawny brown and charcoal gray. The riders are loosely painted so some details are indistinct, but they all seem to have brown skin and dark hair. They wear feathered headdresses and garments in teal blue, fawn brown, or golden yellow. They ride over a low hill toward a crystal-blue river, and then back along a flat expanse toward a row of minuscule, triangular tepees lining the horizon in the deep distance. The horizon comes halfway up the composition, and the tepees are backed by a row of rose-pink, flat-topped cliffs. A pale yellow disk hangs low in the sky, over the distant cliffs. The sky above deepens from soft, lilac purple along the horizon to ice and sapphire blue along the top. A few wispy clouds are burnished orange in the sunlight. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower right corner, “TYMoran 1881,” with the T, Y, and M overlapping to make a monogram.

Talks & Conversations:  Finding Awe: Thomas Moran’s Green River Cliffs, Wyoming 

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Sheer, vertical, cliffs, brightly lit in cream white and rust orange by the low sun, tower over a band of people riding horses into the distance in this long, horizontal landscape painting. The glowing cliffs dominate the upper right quadrant of the painting. They lighten from burnt orange along the jagged tops to flame orange down the steep sides, and are and warm, parchment white near the earth. One tall, narrow promontory to our right looms over a range of lower, rounded cliffs. As the cliffs move into the distance, they are shrouded with a lavender-purple haze. The land closest to us dips into a shallow valley at the bottom center of the composition, leading away from us. The dirt-packed earth is dotted with pine-green, scrubby bushes and vegetation and a grove of low, gnarled trees a short distance to our right. One chestnut-brown horse walks along the path at the bottom center of the composition, lagging behind a cluster of at least two dozen horses and riders winding into the distance. The horses range from ivory white to tawny brown and charcoal gray. The riders are loosely painted so some details are indistinct, but they all seem to have brown skin and dark hair. They wear feathered headdresses and garments in teal blue, fawn brown, or golden yellow. They ride over a low hill toward a crystal-blue river, and then back along a flat expanse toward a row of minuscule, triangular tepees lining the horizon in the deep distance. The horizon comes halfway up the composition, and the tepees are backed by a row of rose-pink, flat-topped cliffs. A pale yellow disk hangs low in the sky, over the distant cliffs. The sky above deepens from soft, lilac purple along the horizon to ice and sapphire blue along the top. A few wispy clouds are burnished orange in the sunlight. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower right corner, “TYMoran 1881,” with the T, Y, and M overlapping to make a monogram.

Talks & Conversations:  Finding Awe: Thomas Moran’s Green River Cliffs, Wyoming 

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Registration Required