Fine Art, Arms & Armor, April 6th 2024
Lot 2109:
Fine abstract oil painting attributed to well known artist George Morrison (1919-2000). Size: 18 1/2" x 14 1/2" framed; 13 3/8" x 9 1/2" unframed.~~.Born in northern Minnesota in the Grand Portage band of Chippewa (Ojibway) Indians, George Morrison made abstract paintings, wood collages, and sculptures that enlarged the notion of Native American art beyond the stereotypical Indian subject matter.Morrison had a traditional Ojibway upbringing on the Grand Portage reservation before attending an Indian boarding school in Wisconsin. He studied art at the Minneapolis School of Art (today the Minneapolis College of Art and Design) and the Art Students League in New York. Living and working in New York in the 1950s and 60s, he participated in the prime of the Abstract Expressionist movement with richly colored abstract paintings and Surrealist drawingsMorrison taught art at the Rhode Island School of Design in the 1960s. On returning to his home state in 1970, he taught in the studio art and Indian studies programs at the University of Minnesota until retirement in 1983. His late works included large relief sculptures, as wide as twenty feet, composed of found and prepared wooden elements collaged together. He also made a series of commissioned wooden column-like sculptures he called "Totems, " and painted many small (one foot wide or less), thickly-painted abstractions known as the "Horizons" series. Morrison’s art was featured in a debut exhibition (with Allan Houser) at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in 2004.Selected solo exhibitions: – 1948?1960: Grand Central Moderns Gallery – New York City, NY. – 1949: Hart Gallery – Duluth, MN. – 1950: Ed Weiner Gallery – Provincetown, MA. – 1954: University of Minnesota – Duluth, MN. – 1955: Shorter College – Rome, GA. – 1957: University of Georgia – Athens, GA. – 1960: Dayton Art Institute – Dayton, OH – 1961: State College of Iowa (the University of Northern Iowa) – Cedar Falls, IA. – 1962: Cornell University – Ithaca, NY; Antioch College – Yellow Springs, OH. – 1967: Academy of Fine Arts – Lynchburg, VA. – 1973?1974: George Morrison: Drawings, traveling exhibition: Walker Art Center – Minneapolis, MN; Heard Museum – Phoenix, AZ; Art Museum of South Texas – Corpus Christi, TX; Amon Carter Museum of Western Art (now known as the Amon Carter Museum of American Art) – Fort Worth, TX. – 1976: Minneapolis Institute of Arts – Minneapolis, MN; Bethel College – Saint Paul, MN. – 1978: Macalester College – Saint Paul, MN; University of Wisconsin?Stout – Menomonie, WI; Carl N. Gorman Museum, University of California – Davis, CA. – 1983: University of Minnesota – University Art Museum, Minneapolis, MN. – 1984: "George Morrison: Paper Collages, " Tweed Museum of Art – University of Minnesota, Duluth, MN. – 1987?1988: "Horizon: Small Painting Series 1980-87," Minnesota Museum of American Art – St. Paul, MN = 1990: "Standing in the Northern Lights: George Morrison, A retrospective, " circ., Tweed Museum of Art – University of Minnesota, Duluth and the Minnesota Museum of Art, St Paul, MN. – 1998: "Morrison’s Horizon, " Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program, Minneapolis, MN. – 2010: "From the Minnesota Museum of American Art", Bockley Gallery, Minneapolis, Minnesota. – 2013?2014: Modern Spirit: The Art of George Morrison, traveling solo retrospective curated by the Minnesota Museum of American Art – Plains Art Museum, Fargo, ND; National Museum of the American Indian, George Gustav Heye Center; Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art; Heard Museum; Minnesota History Center. ~ . Detailed condition reports are not included in this catalog. For additional information, including condition reports, please contact us at [email protected]. 753.
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