TAB Event - Morris Louis Exhibition

Morris Louis Exhibition

This event has ended.
At Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art
Media: Painting

Morris Louis was born in the harbor town of Baltimore, near Washington DC, the capital of the United States in 1912. After graduating from a local art school, he was active for a period of time in NY; however, after returning to his hometown when he was 31, he then mainly based his work in Washington DC. While teaching painting, he used the small dining room of his house as a studio and devoted himself to painting while his wife was out at work.

Louis was quiet and introverted; yet, he was more passionate about creation than others. He decided to distance himself from New York where his generation painters such as Pollock and Rothko were actively working, and he searched for an original style of his own. It was when Louis was 41 years old in 1954 that he started to paint epoch-making artwork, which eventually changed the art world. These were abstract paintings with layers of thinned paints on large canvases that were larger than a person's height. As beautifully dyed fabrics, paints stained the canvas and merged together; thus, a perfectly flat surface was born. From this time until his death in 1962, the painter continued to refine this method while changing the composition of the stains and exploring different combinations of colors.

20 years since the last Louis exhibition was held in Japan, this exhibition presents roughly 15 works from his life, focused on Louis's three main styles; “Veil” paintings, “Unfurled” paintings and “Stripe” paintings.