Indian Composition
A highly regarded American Cubist painter of the 1930s, Morris made a formative trip early in his career to Paris, where he studied with Fernand Léger and met Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Constantin Brancusi. Morris later cofounded American Abstract Artists, a group dedicated to promoting nonobjective art in the United States. He believed authentic American abstraction needed to reflect the nation’s unique history and culture. Indian Composition, one in a series of twelve increasingly reductive works, represents the artist’s decades-long exploration of Indigenous experiences through the lens of biomorphic form and line. While it includes few overt symbols, the work features sand—a material found in art by Navajo peoples and modernist painters alike.
Artwork Details
- Title: Indian Composition
- Artist: George L.K. Morris (American, New York, New York 1905–1975 Stockbridge, Massachusetts)
- Date: 1938
- Medium: Oil and sand on canvas
- Dimensions: 69 7/8 × 53 3/4 in. (177.5 × 136.5 cm)
- Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: Gift of Jerry Leiber, 1985
- Object Number: 1985.440.3
- Rights and Reproduction: © Frelinghuysen Morris Foundation, Lenox Massachusetts
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art
More Artwork
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Multiple artists/makers
1938
Multiple artists/makers
1938
George L.K. Morris
1954
George L.K. Morris
1948
Multiple artists/makers
1937
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