Morris Cole Graves (August 28, 1910 – May 5, 2001) was an American painter. He was one of the earliest Modern artists from the Pacific Northwest to achieve national and international acclaim. His style, referred to by some reviewers as Mysticism, used the muted tones of the Northwest environment, Asian aesthetics and philosophy, and a personal iconography of birds, flowers, chalices, and other images to explore the nature of consciousness.

An article in a 1953 issue of Life magazine cemented Graves' reputation as a major figure of the 'Northwest School' of artists. He lived and worked mostly in Western Washington, but spent considerable time traveling and living in Europe and Asia, and spent the last several years of his life in Loleta, California.

Constant winds and cold winters made it much more difficult than expected to establish a working farm, and the struggle led to bankruptcy of the senior Graves' once-thriving paint and wallpaper store in Seattle. In 1911, a few months after Morris' birth, the family returned to the Seattle area,

He was a self-taught artist with natural understandings of color and line.

Graves dropped out of high school after his sophomore year, and between 1928 and 31, along with his brother Russell, visited all the major Asian ports of call as a steamship hand for the American Mail Line. On arriving in Japan, he wrote:

Career

Rambling

thumb|Church at [[Index, Washington|Index, 1934, painted for the Works Projects Administration]]

In his early twenties, Graves finished high school in 1932 in Beaumont, Texas, while living with his maternal aunt and uncle. He then returned to Seattle, and received his first recognition as an artist when his painting Moor Swan (1933) won an award in the Seattle Art Museum's Northwest Annual Exhibition and was purchased by the museum. Ironically, by this time the four had for the most part fallen out over various personal, political, and artistic issues, and were barely on speaking terms with each other.

In the 1950s, Graves returned to oils, but also painted in watercolor and tempera.

In Ireland

By 1954 Graves was feeling oppressed both by resurgent popularity and the encroachment of suburban development around his home. After spending several weeks in Japan, he rented Careladen to the poet Theodore Roethke and moved to Ireland. With companions Richard Svare and Dorothy Schumacher he lived in various parts of the country before settling on Woodton Manor, a rustic 18th century house near Dublin. In Ireland he created paintings known as the Hibernation series and became fascinated with the night sky. This led to Instruments for a New Navigation, a collection of precisely rendered bronze, glass, and stone sculptures inspired by the dawning Space Age. Finding no market for these unusual pieces, they were disassembled and not displayed again until 1999.

Later years

In 1965 Graves purchased 380 acres of redwood forest property, around a five-acre lake, in Loleta, California, near Eureka. He hired architect Ibsen Nelsen to design a home which, after numerous technical and financial problems, was eventually constructed beside the lake. Graves would live on this property, which he called simply 'The Lake', for the remaining 35 years of his life. Although a sign posted at the entrance to the property read "No visitors today, tomorrow, or the day after", Graves' assistant Robert Yarber lived there with him much of the time, and he occasionally allowed visits by family members and old friends.

Morris Graves died the morning of May 5, 2001 at his home in Loleta, hours after suffering a stroke.

Legacy

Museum

The Morris Graves Museum of Art, located in the restored Carnegie library building in Eureka, California, bears his name and contains a small collection of his works and much of his personal collection of works by other artists.

Exhibitions

(Partial listing of group and solo shows featuring Graves' work; some dates approximate)

  • 1936 - Seattle Art Museum, solo
  • 1942 - Museum of Modern Art (NYC), Americans 42: 18 Artists from 9 States
  • 1942 - Willard Gallery (NYC), solo. note: Graves' work was shown regularly at the Willard until its closing in 1987.
  • 1942 - Phillips Memorial Gallery (Washington, D.C.), Three Americans: Weber, Knaths, Graves
  • 1943 - Arts Club of Chicago, solo
  • 1943 - Detroit Institute of Arts, solo
  • 1943 - University Gallery (Minneapolis), solo
  • 1943 - Museum of Modern Art (NYC), Romantic Painting in America
  • 1956 - Whitney Museum (NYC), retrospective
  • 1956 - Phillips Gallery (Washington, D.C.), retrospective
  • 1956 - Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), retrospective
  • 1956 - Des Moines Art Center, retrospective
  • 1957 - M. H. de Young Museum (San Francisco), retrospective
  • 1957 - Art Galleries of U.C.L.A. (Los Angeles), retrospective
  • 1983 - Morris Graves: Vision of the Inner Eye, traveling exhibition curated by Ray Kass, organized by The Phillips Collection; toured The Phillips Collection (Washington, D.C.), Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), Oakland Museum (California), Seattle Art Museum, San Diego Museum of Art, and Greenville County Museum of Art (South Carolina).
  • 2000 - Schmidt Bingham Gallery (NYC), Instruments for a New Navigation.
  • 2010 - Henry Art Gallery (Seattle), Vortexhibition Polyphonica
  • 2014 - Seattle Art Museum, Modernism in the Pacific Northwest: The Mythic and the Mystical.

thumbnail|center|Pendant of The Mystic Sons of Morris Graves, group formed in 1991 by artist [[Charles Krafft and Larry Reid to honor Graves' work and spirit.]]

References

Further reading

  • Conkelton, Sheryl, What It Meant to be Modern: Seattle Art at Mid-Century, Henry Art Gallery, Seattle 1999
  • Conkelton, Sheryl, and Landau, Laura, Northwest Mythologies: The Interactions of Mark Tobey, Morris Graves, Kenneth Callahan, and Guy Anderson, Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma WA; University of Washington Press, Seattle and London 2003
  • Kass, Ray, Morris Graves: Vision of the Inner Eye (George Braziller, Inc., New York, 1983, in association with The Phillips Collection, Wash., D.C.) WorldCat entry
  • Kingsbury, Martha, Art of the Thirties: The Pacific Northwest, University of Washington Press for Henry Art Gallery, Seattle and London 1972
  • Müller-Yao, Marguerite Hui, Der Einfluß der Kunst der chinesischen Kalligraphie auf die westliche informelle Malerei, Dissertation Bonn, Köln 1985.
  • Müller-Yao, Marguerite: Informelle Malerei und chinesische Kalligrafie, in: Informel, Begegnung und Wandel, (hrsg von Heinz Althöfer, Schriftenreihe des Museums am Ostwall; Bd. 2), Dortmund 2002,
  • Svare, Richard, Morris Graves: His Houses, His Gardens, Process, 2013;
  • Wolff, Theodore F., Morris Graves: The Early Works, Museum of Northwest Art, La Conner, Washington 1998
  • The Library, Humboldt State University
  • Museum of Northwest Art - Morris Graves
  • Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon in Eugene
  • Woodside Braseth Gallery
  • Morris Graves papers at University of Oregon Libraries Special Collections and University Archives