Indian Composition No. 6
Brooklyn Museum photograph
Object Label
This composition of dynamic forms is one of twelve works that George Lovett Kingsland Morris invested with references to Native American culture in an effort to create a distinctly American mode of abstraction, Morris was won over to abstraction during his stay in Paris from 1929 to 1930, when he studied with the avant-garde French artists Fernand Léger and Amédée Ozenfant at the Académie de l'Art Moderne. Although Morris soon was among the most vigorous promoters of European-inspired abstract art in the United States, he encouraged artists to establish an original American vocabulary of forms by turning to indigenous arts for inspiration. Here the Native American references include the allusion to the texture of birch bark, the arcing, arrowlike form at the left, and the tooth- or clawlike forms in the lower register.
Caption
George Lovett Kingsland Morris American, 1905–1975. Indian Composition No. 6, 1938. Oil on canvas, 48 x 33 in. (121.9 x 83.8 cm) Frame: 56 x 39 7/8 x 2 in. (142.2 x 101.3 x 5.1 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Bequest of Laura L. Barnes and gift of Mr. and Mrs. Allan D. Emil, by exchange and Dick S. Ramsay Fund, 2006.42. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2006.42_PS2.jpg)
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Title
Indian Composition No. 6
Date
1938
Medium
Oil on canvas
Classification
Dimensions
48 x 33 in. (121.9 x 83.8 cm) Frame: 56 x 39 7/8 x 2 in. (142.2 x 101.3 x 5.1 cm)
Signatures
Signed lower right: "Morris"
Inscriptions
All on verso: Inscribed at bottom, upside down and crossed out: "George L. K. Morris / Composition / 1937" Inscribed at top: "George L. K. Morris / 1938 [black rectangle] / Indian Composition No. 6"
Credit Line
Bequest of Laura L. Barnes and gift of Mr. and Mrs. Allan D. Emil, by exchange and Dick S. Ramsay Fund
Accession Number
2006.42
Rights
© artist or artist's estate
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Frequent Art Questions
Do you know why George Lovett Kingsland Morris was so invested in Native American Art? Was he himself Native American?
No, he himself was not Native American at all. He was born into an old and affluent Anglo-American family.He was interested in reinterpreting Native American art and craft as abstract "fine" art because he was looking for "authentic" American source material. Abstraction in American art was influenced by slightly earlier European movements like Cubism, and American artists were trying to put a homegrown stamp on the movement.Ironically, Morris was part of a group known as the "Park Avenue Cubists."
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