GEORGE MORRISON
Untitled (Grayscale Abstract)
Date: 1957
Dimensions: 25.25” x 36.75” (Art) | 33” x 45” (Frame)
Medium: Gouache and acrylic on paper
Condition: Overall very good
Provenance:
– Artist’s Estate
– Private Collection, Minneapolis, MN
– Trotta-Bono Contemporary, Los Angeles, CA
Created in 1957, this abstract composition exemplifies George Morrison’s distinctive approach to Abstract Expressionism through a restrained palette of black, white, and grey. Dense passages of mark-making, layered gesture, and shifting tonal contrasts generate a powerful sense of movement and depth. While non-representational, the work suggests horizon, land, and atmosphere—early expressions of spatial concerns that would remain central to Morrison’s practice.
Long underrecognized within dominant narratives of postwar abstraction, Morrison’s work has experienced an extraordinary resurgence of institutional and critical attention in recent years. Major museum exhibitions and acquisitions have firmly repositioned him as a central figure in American Abstract Expressionism, culminating in a landmark solo retrospective at The Metropolitan Museum of Art earlier this year.