Lot Essay
"The late Mr. Louis's paintings happen more in the eye than on the canvas. Their importance lies in the fact that they precisely define the capacities of the eye to separate, combine and resolve colors in a sharply controlled situation... the eye is the organ on which the artist plays... Mr. Louis's method of conjugating his color bands could be called a sort of color grammar. These last works are tighter and more precise, the grammar is more knowing, the conjugations are more controlled..." (Brian O'Doherty in a review of the 1961 André Emmerich show, D. Upright, Morris Louis The Complete Paintings, New York, p. 32).