Ronald Slowinski

4-Seasons: Fall

circa 1987

Gouache on paper, 18 7/8 x 14 3/4 in. Signed (at lower right): Morris; (with monogram, on the back): GLKM [monogram] / 1932 [sic] Executed circa late 1940s A passionate advocate of abstract art during the 1930s and 1940s, George L. K. Morris was active as a painter, sculptor, editor, and critic. An erudite man with an internationalist point of view, Morris eschewed the social, political, and figural concerns that preoccupied so many artists of Depression-era America, believing that painters should focus their attention on the beauty, refinement, and simplicity of pure form instead. His goal, he said, was “to wedge the expression further and further into the confines of the canvas until every shape takes on a spatial meaning” (as quoted in Ward Jackson, “George L. K. Morris: Forty Years of Abstract Art,” Art Journal 32 [Winter 1972–73], p. 150). Born into an affluent family in New York City, Morris was a descendent of General Lewis Morris, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. From 1918 until 1924, he attended the Groton School in Connecticut, studying classics and art. He continued to focus on literature and art while attending Yale University (1924–28), an experience that prepared him well for his future activity as an artist-critic. After graduating in 1928, Morris studied at the Art Students League of New York, working under the realist painters John Sloan and Kenneth Hayes Miller, as well as Jan Matulka, the only modernist on the faculty. In the spring of 1929, Morris traveled to Paris with Albert E. Gallatin, a family friend and fellow painter who introduced him to leading members of the Parisian avant-garde, including Jean Arp, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Jean Hélion, and Piet Mondrian. Morris also took classes at the Académie Moderne, studying under Fernand Léger and Amédée Ozenfant, important exponents of Synthetic Cubism who influenced his aesthetic development. Indeed, after experimenting with the simplified forms of Modernism for a few years, Morris moved on to abstraction by 1934, adopting a hard-edged, geometric approach inspired by Leger’s cubist style and the biomorphic shapes of Arp and Joan Miró. Following his return to New York in 1930, Morris built a white-walled, open-spaced studio (inspired by that of Ozenfant, which had been designed by Le Corbusier) on the grounds of Brockhurst, his parents’ 46-acre estate in Lenox, Massachusetts. In 1935, he married the painter and collagist Estelle “Suzy...

Ortez (Modernist Family Portrait) is a vibrant 1947 abstract gouache on paper by American artist Lewis Lee Tilley (1921–2005). This dynamic composition captures a family of five seat...

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Composition is a Gouache realized by Reynold Arnould (Le Havre 1919 - Parigi 1980). Good condition. No signature. Reynold Arnould was born in Le Havre, France in 1919. He studied...

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Portrait of an Artist on Interview Magazine Back Page 1989 Modernism Watercolor Possibly a portrait of Maria Helena Vieira da Silva Portuguese artist. Portrait of a woman on Andy Worhol's Interview Magazine back page and painted over in watercolor and acrylic by Ricardo (Richard) de Silva (De Silva) (Brazil/American, 20th C). Possibly a portrait of Maria Helena Vieira da Silva. From a collection of Ricardo de Silva's work and memorabilia. DeSilva was born in Brazil and grew up in Los Angeles. He was a gallery owner, first in Santa Barbara in the 1960's and 70's, then in San Jose in the 1980-2000s. He was dedicated to promoting the work of talented upcoming artists, including Kogyo and Hasui Kiyochika, Robert Frame, Jim Stuckenberg, Alice Robertson Carr, Deborah Eve Alastra, Russell Kelly, and Diana Mark. Maria Helena Vieira da Silva was a Portuguese abstract...

The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate