Morris Louis Bernstein, known professionally as Morris Louis, was an American painter.
13 Facts About Morris Louis
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Morris Louis worked at various odd jobs to support himself while painting, and in 1935 was president of the Baltimore Artists' Association.
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Morris Louis returned to his native Baltimore in 1940 and taught privately.
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In 1952, Morris Louis moved to Washington, DC Living in Washington, DC, he was somewhat apart from the New York scene and he was working almost in isolation.
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Morris Louis characteristically applied extremely diluted, thinned paint to an unprimed, unstretched canvas, allowing it to flow over the inclined surface in effects sometimes suggestive of translucent color veils.
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Morris Louis reported that he thought of Frankenthaler as the bridge between Jackson Pollock and the possible.
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However, even more so than Frankenthaler, Morris Louis eliminated the brush gesture, although his flat, thin pigment is at times modulated in billowing and subtle tones.
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In 1954, Morris Louis produced his mature Veil Paintings, which were characterized by overlapping, superimposed layers of transparent color poured onto and stained into sized or unsized canvas.
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Morris Louis destroyed many of his paintings between 1955 and 1957.
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Major Morris Louis exhibitions were organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 1967 and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, in 1976.
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Morris Louis supported him throughout his career and in memory of him she supported one artist every year through the Morris Louis Fellowship at George Washington University.
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Morris Louis was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1962 and soon after died at his home in Washington, DC, on September 7,1962.
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The Estate of Morris Louis is represented exclusively by Diane Upright, a former professor of fine art at Harvard University.