Past Exhibition

Morris Louis

On either side of a rectangular, off-white canvas, thirteen wavy, almost parallel lines, each in a different color, drift and drip from either short end of the canvas down toward the bottom center. The lines vary in thickness and many are separated by narrow white spaces, but sometimes the lines bump or drip into their neighbors. Most of the colors to our left are warm, with buttercup yellow, papaya and fire orange, pea green, crimson red, and magenta. To our right, most of the colors are cool with pine and forest green, navy blue, burgundy red, and one lemon-yellow line. The largest portion of the composition, though, is the V-shaped white space left in between each bank of thirteen lines.
Morris Louis, Beta Kappa, 1961, acrylic on canvas, Gift of Marcella Louis Brenner, 1970.21.1

Details

  • Dates

    -

  • Locations

    Main Floor, Galleries 68, 69, 70, 71 (4,000 sq. ft.)
On either side of a rectangular, off-white canvas, thirteen wavy, almost parallel lines, each in a different color, drift and drip from either short end of the canvas down toward the bottom center. The lines vary in thickness and many are separated by narrow white spaces, but sometimes the lines bump or drip into their neighbors. Most of the colors to our left are warm, with buttercup yellow, papaya and fire orange, pea green, crimson red, and magenta. To our right, most of the colors are cool with pine and forest green, navy blue, burgundy red, and one lemon-yellow line. The largest portion of the composition, though, is the V-shaped white space left in between each bank of thirteen lines.
Morris Louis, Beta Kappa, 1961, acrylic on canvas, Gift of Marcella Louis Brenner, 1970.21.1

Overview: 16 large, late paintings by Morris Louis, a founder of the Washington Color School, were assembled by E.A. Carmean Jr., curator of 20th-century art. The works dated from 1954 to Louis' death in 1962.

Attendance: 182,733

Catalog: Morris Louis, Major Themes and Variations, by E.A. Carmean Jr. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1976.

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