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Concretion is an abstract work, based upon the relationship of colored forms in an undefined space.  The lively organic shapes maintain a rhythmic and harmonic balance.

The artist felt that painting could express a universal language, not dependent on subject matter or representational images.

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George Lovette Kingsland Morris

Concretion, 1937

oil on canvas

24 ¼ x 20 ¼ in.

Mr. and Mrs. Julius F. Pratt Fund

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A descendant of General Lewis Morris, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, George L. K. Morris was born in New York City. Morris was a graduate of Yale University and studied under the realist painters John Sloan and Kenneth Hayes Miller at the Art Students League before traveling to Paris to continue his studies with the French abstractionist Fernand Léger at the Académie Moderne.  Léger’s Cubist style with figures influenced by the machine age shaped Morris’s approach to his own abstract compositions.  Morris was a strong advocate of American modernism both as an artist and a critic.  He was the founder of the American Abstract Artists, edited their publication The World of Abstract Art, and was the editor of the Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art and Partisan Review.  He married the abstract artist Suzy Frelinghuysen and the two lived a lavish lifestyle.  They had homes in New York City, the Berkshires and Paris, but never lost their strong commitment to their art.

Morris was one of Modernism’s earliest and most articulate American spokesmen who came to believe that paintings were capable of expressing a universal abstract language, not dependent upon subject matter or representational images.  Concretion is a fully abstract work, based upon the relationship of colored forms in an undefined space.  Unified by an earth-toned palette and similar shapes, Concretion’s lively organic forms maintain a rhythmic and harmonic balance.

Reference

Melinda A. Lorenz.  George L. K. Morris: Artist and Critic, Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1982. ISBN-13: 978-0835713016