Structural Forms

1953

George Morrison

(Grand Portage Band of Chippewa, 1919–2000)

Culture

America

Medium

gouache

Measurements

Matted: 59.7 x 74.9 cm (23 1/2 x 29 1/2 in.); Frame: 61.6 x 76.8 x 3.8 cm (24 1/4 x 30 1/4 x 1 1/2 in.); Sheet: 50.2 x 66.2 cm (19 3/4 x 26 1/16 in.)

Credit Line

Severance and Greta Millikin Trust 2024.144

This artwork is known to be under copyright.

Location

Not on view

Did You Know?

George Morrison described drawings such as this one as featuring “mosaic-like shapes . . . to suggest organic and structural forms in nature.”

Description

This drawing relates to Ojibwe artist George Morrison’s desire to combine his Native heritage with his ongoing interest in abstraction. The artist began his career in New York during the 1940s, when abstract expressionism dominated the art world. In 1952, Morrison traveled to France and, there, developed a signature style featuring layers of color and geometric forms to suggest his native landscape. He saw the tones and repeated forms in the drawing as suggestive of the bodies of water that had defined his life, from Lake Superior in Minnesota to the Atlantic in New York and the Mediterranean Sea in France.