George Morrison Gets His Due

​​​​​The recent fervor over George Morrison’s (Grand Portage Anishinaabe) work can be compared to a rock legend going on a long-awaited tour. In 2022, the US Post Office released a five-piece set of stamps that feature his landmark horizon paintings. In January 2024, the George Morrison Center for Indigenous Arts opened at the University of Minnesota. And there’s a still-private Morrison project on the horizon at the Minnesota Museum of American Art (the M), which holds more than 90 of his works.

The National Gallery acquired one of Morrison’s works in 2023. Painted in 1961, Untitled is a 3' × 4' canvas stuccoed in thick red, green, and blue pigments. The hues may evoke the land and sky reflected in the waters of Lake Superior, not far from where Morrison lived near Grand Marais, Minnesota. “It’s the first work by Morrison to enter the museum’s holdings,” says modern art curator James Meyer. Proposed by director Kaywin Feldman, the abstract expressionist painting is now on display in the East Building. Part of what’s considered one of the most groundbreaking movements of 20th-century art, it's been a long time in coming.  

“Introducing a work by an Ojibwe artist to the collection broadens our perception of who created abstract expressionist art, where it was made, and the iconography of abstract expressionist painting,” Meyer observes.

American painters developed abstract expressionism in the 1940s and ’50s. They often painted with bold, sweeping brush strokes, creating the impression of spontaneity. After decades of going unsung compared to his New York School contemporaries like Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline, Morrison is finally getting his due.

“There are lots of factors that contribute to an artist coming to national prominence,” according to Laura Joseph, formerly senior curator of the M, which hosts the largest and most comprehensive collection of Morrison’s work. “It reflects the political and cultural dynamics of the day.” 

Morrison’s recent fame, she says, “is new and is tied to a groundswell of Native-led cultural reclamation work in response to generations of attempted erasure.” 

“Histories of American art have tended to highlight a familiar roster of white male artists. But as the people with decision-making power at cultural institutions become more diverse, so do the artists and culture-bearers who are exhibited, taught, and supported.”  

Morrison’s Life and Art Blend Together

It’s not just the brilliant abstract beauty of Morrison’s paintings that has captured the public’s attention. Nor is it the focus on inclusion and representation in the art world. 

“There are few artists that make art till the end of their life, like Monet. George is one,” says Hazel Belvo, Morrison’s former life partner and one of Minnesota’s best-known artists. “When an artist reaches that point, they reach a more spiritual level.” 

Just as the land and the sky overlap and blend at the horizons in his paintings, Morrison’s story and his art were almost one and the same. The two couldn’t be separated. No matter where he was, the fishing village from his childhood was there; the light from hazy mornings on Lake Superior spilled out on canvases. Even when he was surrounded by concrete and taxi cabs, deep green forests and North Shore sunsets were always with him. His abstractions resonated with the natural world.

“George had such curiosity about the world,” says Belvo. “He never lost connection.” Not during the years he was separated from his family and sent to Native boarding school. Not as a teen, when he was hospitalized after numerous surgeries, bedridden in a body cast.

No matter where he lived or studied, she recalls, “he wrote to his mother every two weeks . . . I have all his letters from Spain, France, England. Different states.”

His life and art reflect a deep connection to nature and Ojibwe values: bravery, even in the face of physical and mental pain, and a love and respect for nature, his family, and his roots.  

Morrison Leaves Minnesota

Morrison graduated from Grand Marais High School in 1938. Soon after, he moved to Minneapolis to study at the College of Art and Design. In 1943, he was lured to New York City to join the Art Students League. 

In Manhattan Morrison discovered stylistic allies like De Kooning and Kline. He spent time digging the jazz scene with Gerry Mulligan and Dexter Gordon and going to art openings at the United States Chess Federation headquarters with Marcel Duchamp.  

Then he would find his way to the Native Center in lower Manhattan. There, people from more than 72 tribes celebrated their interconnectedness, sharing the stories and complexities of migrating from reservations to the big city. Belvo recalled the dances and parties she and Morrison would attend, mingling with his circle of friends. They included artist Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (Citizen of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation); Kiowa writer N. Scott Momaday; and Louis W. Ballard, the Quapaw composer who wrote Incident at Wounded Knee. “He was in touch with a lot of Native people in similar situations. . . His place was all a community of artists. It was important to him.”

This ability to blend his artistic and cultural life added to Morrison’s mastery of modern art. “Two worlds coming together,” Belvo said—like his baseline of horizon, earth and sky.

The infusion of culture and ideas readied Morrison for a new journey that would distinctly inform his art and way of life. Morrison’s Fulbright scholarship took him to Paris and Provence, France, in 1952 and ’53. Vincent van Gogh and Henri Matisse had also painted with light in this region, studying the horizon in their work. Following the Ojibwe path of humility, Morrison absorbed the lessons of this place and increased his mastery of abstraction.  

Morrison Returns Home

He brought what he learned back to the States, teaching at both the Rhode Island School of Design and the University of Minnesota. During that time, he also traveled to visit Native artists in pueblos across the country. The people he met and their artistry buoyed his connection to the earth and sky. They allowed him to share his knowledge of modern art with others in an intimate, familiar way.

Belvo described his encounters with Native artists who loved him, his sense of humor, and the way he encouraged their work. “Once, he went to the Santo Domingo Reservation in New Mexico to visit a jeweler. They [had] never met. The man ran out of his house and gave him a big hug. He said, ‘I thought you were my brother!’” That was Morrison’s world. He had the same effect on younger contemporary artists. “He offered to students a fresher way of looking at their work.”  

After a lifetime of learning and teaching, Morrison retired in 1983 and moved to the Grand Portage reservation along the North Shore of Lake Superior. His studio, called Red Rock, was not far from where he grew up in Chippewa City. A long journey had brought him home to a place where, among the sunlit trees stretching along the dark blue water, his life and art blended together in symbiotic harmony.

By the time of Morrison’s passing 24 years ago, his works were in more than 22 museums worldwide. He’d be pleased with the turn of events since then, according to Belvo. Morrison’s work, she says, is a collective experience, where life and art always return to their source. Morrison’s wisdom was in applying contemporary ideas in art alongside traditional Ojibwe values. Blending light, the horizon, and the land into being. His gift was sharing his art and life with the world. 

As Belvo says, “He was the culture.”