{"data":{"id":"799","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":799,"topgoose_id":1698,"tms_id":799,"display_name":"Morris Louis","sort_name":"Louis Morris","display_date":"1912–1962","begin_date":"1912","end_date":"1962","biography":"\u003cp\u003eInfluenced by the drip painting technique of\n\u003ca href=\"/artists/1039\"\u003eJackson Pollock\u003c/a\u003e, a group of American artists\nin the 1950s began to experiment with\nthe effects of diluting and pouring synthetic\npaints onto unprimed canvas, allowing\nthe paint to spread and bleed, and creating\nflat areas of color. Chief among them\nwere \u003ca href=\"/artists/452\"\u003eHelen Frankenthaler\u003c/a\u003e in New York\nand Morris Louis in Washington, DC. Louis\nvisited Frankenthaler’s studio in 1953,\nand after seeing her recent “stain” paintings\nhe devoted himself to exploring the\ntechnique and expanding the style for the\nnext nine years. Louis’s mature paintings\nare often divided into three series, each\nnumbering over one hundred works, in which\nhe experimented with different compositions:\nthe broad, irregular swaths of often\noverlapping color of the\u003cem\u003e\u0026nbsp;Veils\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003e(1954, 1958– 59); the brightly colored, poured ribbons that uncoil over the bottom edges of the \u003cem\u003eUnfurleds\u003c/em\u003e (1960–61); and the multicolor bands that overlap and extend horizontally or vertically across the Stripes (1961–62).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"/collection/works/39052\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eAddition II\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e, one of the Veils, differs from earlier paintings in the series with its distinct separation of the broad plumes of color. Louis, like many of the Color Field painters, often left large areas of canvas blank, and the open space in the center of \u003cem\u003eAddition II\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003edirects attention outward to\nthe irregular clouds of blue, red, green, and\nblack paint that emanate from the four\nedges. Critic and friend Clement Greenberg\nobserved that Louis’s staining technique\n“conveys a sense not only of color as\nsomehow disembodied, and therefore more\npurely optical, but also of color as a thing\nthat opens and expands the picture plane.”\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":false,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500012330","wikidata_id":"Q685186","created_at":"2017-08-30T16:35:47.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-04-12T07:00:37.745-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/799/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/799/exhibitions"}}}}