Morris Louis

Tet
1958

A colorful abstract painting with vertical streaks of blue, green, and hints of pink and yellow, creating a symmetrical pattern on a pale background.

Not on view

Date
1958

Classification
Paintings

Medium
Magna on canvas

Dimensions
Overall: 94 1/8 × 152 1/8in. (239.1 × 386.4 cm)

Accession number
65.9

Credit line
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Friends of the Whitney Museum of American Art

Rights and reproductions
© Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

API
artworks/1745

Morris Louis’s first mature works were the series of Veil paintings he began in 1954 and took up again in 1957-59; Tet belongs to this later group. It was initially inspired by Louis’s 1953 encounter with Helen Frankenthaler’s “stain” technique, which retains the monumental scale and improvisational style of Abstract Expressionism but discards its emphasis on expressionistic gesture. Following her lead, he began pouring highly diluted, plastic-based paint onto unsized and unprimed canvas without the aid of a brush. But whereas Frankenthaler placed her canvas directly on the floor, Louis leaned his at an angle against a wall so that the paint flowed freely down its expanse, following the laws of gravity. The results, however—luminous, diaphanous washes of color—appear weightless, as streams of commingled emeralds, steel grays, and smoky blues have soaked into the raw canvas. This tension between the physicality of the paint and its optical transformation into pure, disembodied color lies at the heart of Louis’s endeavor. Tet refers to the ninth letter of the Hebrew alphabet; it was among the titles assigned to Louis’s work after his death by art critic Clement Greenberg, who was a close friend of the artist.

Audio

Morris Louis, Tet, 1958

In Where We Are (Spanish)

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Morris Louis, Tet, 1958

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David Breslin: Amo estas pinturas porque, al mirarlas, me resulta muy difícil entender cómo las hizo.
Narrator: David Breslin es el Curador Familia DeMartini y Director de la colección.
David Breslin: Incluso cuando se comprende o se descubre que el artista realiza obras como Tet vaciando pintura sobre el lienzo, dejando que esta impregne profundamente el lienzo hasta mancharlo. Aunque uno sepa que es así como logró esta pintura, me siento igualmente anonadado ante lo desconocido de la obra. Creo que, por eso, la crítica describió estas pinturas, sobre todo en un primer momento, como (entre comillas) “misticismo cromático”. Esa definición me encanta porque lo cromático, la idea del color, es muy material. Y unirla a la idea de misticismo, a algo desconocido, incontrolable, que nos lleva a otros mundos, que lleva a pensar que es diferente o que rebasa lo material, en verdad refleja lo que es esta pintura, lo que se experimenta al verla.
Morris Louis, Tet, 1958

In Where We Are (Spanish)

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Morris Louis, Tet, 1958

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David Breslin: Algo que siempre me pareció interesante acerca de la obra de Louis es que jamás permitió que lo vieran pintar, excepto, quizá, a su esposa porque trabajaba en su casa. No tuvo un estudio grande y ninguna de las habitaciones de su casa siquiera se acercaban al tamaño de sus pinturas. Por tanto, durante muchos años, los conservadores intentaron descifrar cómo las hacía y descubrieron que enrollaba parte del lienzo y vertía la pintura en la parte desplegada; luego desenrollaba el lienzo y volvía a enrollar la parte que ya se había secado. Lo que me fascina de esta técnica y, en general, de su manera de trabajar, es que, al pintar, jamás veía la pintura en su totalidad.
Morris Louis, Tet, 1958

In Where We Are

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Morris Louis, Tet, 1958

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David Breslin: One of the things I have always found interesting about Louis’s painting is that he never really let anyone watch him paint, except with the exception maybe of his wife, but he worked within his home. He didn’t have a large studio and none of the rooms in his house were anywhere close to the size of his paintings. So conservators for years and years have tried to figure out how in the heck he did this, and what they really came to discover was that he would roll the canvas in portions and pour, and then unroll the canvas, and then reroll the portion that had dried. What I find pretty fascinating about that—and really fascinating about his entire way of working—is that he himself, while working, never saw the entirety of the painting at one time.
Morris Louis, Tet, 1958

In Where We Are

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Morris Louis, Tet, 1958

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David Breslin: I love these paintings because I have such a hard time—when looking at it—understanding how he made it.
Narrator: David Breslin is the DeMartini Family Curator and Director of the collection.
David Breslin: Even when you realize or find out that he makes a painting like Tet by pouring paint onto the canvas, letting that paint really seep into the canvas and stain it. Even though I know that’s how he’s achieved what's happened in the painting, I’m still blown away by the unknown of the work. I think that’s why this painting has caused critics, particularly at the moment in which it was made, to describe some of them as having this, quote-unquote, “chromatic mysticism.” I love that idea because the chromatic, the idea of the color, is very material. But then pair it with this idea of mysticism. Something we don’t know, that's out-of-hand ,that calls us out of this earth, that imagines that there’s something more than or different than the material—is really fitting to this painting, one’s experience of viewing it.