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Graves, Morris
| Last Name: | Graves |
|---|---|
| First Name: | Morris |
| Dates: |
*1910 (Date of Birth)
*2001 (Date of Death)
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| Biography/History: | A native of the Pacific Northwest, Morris Graves was born in Fox Valley Oregon, in 1910, and moved to Seattle as a child. Before the age of twenty, he had traveled to the Orient three times as a cadet on the American Mail Lines. The youngest of the "Northwest" group that included Tobey, Anderson and Callahan, he was the first to receive national recognition when thirty of his works were included in an exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art entitled "Americans 1942." Graves achieved national "celebrity" status because of that exhibition, and his work has since been included in numerous important exhibitions, and in private and public collections all over the world. Morris Graves comes first to mind when the term "mystic painter" is used, since he was one of the first Northwest artists to combine the mystic with an oriental influence. His study of Zen is evident in the meditative and introspective approach that he takes to his painting. Resulting in simplicity of form that holds a deeper meaning, this approach is strongly experience in his "bird" paintings, or in the quiet delicacy of his later "flower" paintings. Graves’ paintings are, for him, an attempt to capture the inner essence of the world around him, and share a spiritual responsibility rather than a physical truth. |
| Related Objects: |
4395.21 (Painting, Resilient Young Pine, 1944)
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