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Lot Essay
"These, Louis's last great paintings, are probably the most open and certainly the most dynamic of the Stripes" (John Elderfield, Curator, Morris Louis, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1987).
Morris Louis began his series of Stripe paintings early in 1961, less than two years before his untimely death from lung cancer at the age of forty-nine. These are his final series of paintings and they marked a radical departure in his work. The Stripes were starkly pure in their minimalist abstraction and they were significantly smaller than the vast majority of his mural-sized Veils, Florals, and Unfurleds.
Undoubtedly, part of the reason for the reduced size came from his frustration over the fact that few galleries or collectors at that time had spaces large enough to exhibit his prior work. So, Louis developed a theme that had appeared in a few Column paintings made in 1960 and concentrated on abutting bands of vivid hues placed in one or more stacks against the unpainted canvas. He had already employed the use of vivid, unmixed hues in his Unfurled series, painted in 1960-61. Initially, he directed the Stripes to be stretched with the colors positioned vertically on the canvas and anchored to the bottom edge, but in the spring of 1962 he composed horizontal Stripe paintings by positioning the color stacks so that they were entirely surrounded by unpainted canvas, making the color disembodied and hovering in space.
Finally in the summer of 1962, just before illness and surgery forced him to stop painting, Louis pushed the composition of his Stripe paintings in an unexpected direction. Three canvases on which the stripes floated in the center were marked by him for stretching as squares with the bands of color positioned diagonally. He discussed this decision at the time with both André Emmerich and with art critic Clement Greenberg. Louis explained to Greenberg that he hoped the diagonal stripes would "make a transition move from the vertical picture I'd done for so long to the big unfurling ones....." (M. Louis, quoted by D. Upright, Morris Louis: The Complete Paintings, New York, 1985, p. 37).
Louis himself had never actually seen one stretched due to their size. He was anticipating Emmerich's move to a larger gallery space which could accommodate them. In fact, the Emmerich Gallery in Soho opened in 1964 with an exhibition of Louis' Unfurleds.
Hot Half, by far the most powerful of the three diagonal Stripe paintings, is striking in its taut abstraction. The equal widths of the six stripes, the clarity of color contrasts and elisions, and the blatant asymmetry of the structure infuse the painting with a vigor that belies its actual size. The exceptional quality of this picture, like the Unfurleds to which Louis related it, stems from its absolute integration of color and composition as pictorial coequals.
Morris Louis began his series of Stripe paintings early in 1961, less than two years before his untimely death from lung cancer at the age of forty-nine. These are his final series of paintings and they marked a radical departure in his work. The Stripes were starkly pure in their minimalist abstraction and they were significantly smaller than the vast majority of his mural-sized Veils, Florals, and Unfurleds.
Undoubtedly, part of the reason for the reduced size came from his frustration over the fact that few galleries or collectors at that time had spaces large enough to exhibit his prior work. So, Louis developed a theme that had appeared in a few Column paintings made in 1960 and concentrated on abutting bands of vivid hues placed in one or more stacks against the unpainted canvas. He had already employed the use of vivid, unmixed hues in his Unfurled series, painted in 1960-61. Initially, he directed the Stripes to be stretched with the colors positioned vertically on the canvas and anchored to the bottom edge, but in the spring of 1962 he composed horizontal Stripe paintings by positioning the color stacks so that they were entirely surrounded by unpainted canvas, making the color disembodied and hovering in space.
Finally in the summer of 1962, just before illness and surgery forced him to stop painting, Louis pushed the composition of his Stripe paintings in an unexpected direction. Three canvases on which the stripes floated in the center were marked by him for stretching as squares with the bands of color positioned diagonally. He discussed this decision at the time with both André Emmerich and with art critic Clement Greenberg. Louis explained to Greenberg that he hoped the diagonal stripes would "make a transition move from the vertical picture I'd done for so long to the big unfurling ones....." (M. Louis, quoted by D. Upright, Morris Louis: The Complete Paintings, New York, 1985, p. 37).
Louis himself had never actually seen one stretched due to their size. He was anticipating Emmerich's move to a larger gallery space which could accommodate them. In fact, the Emmerich Gallery in Soho opened in 1964 with an exhibition of Louis' Unfurleds.
Hot Half, by far the most powerful of the three diagonal Stripe paintings, is striking in its taut abstraction. The equal widths of the six stripes, the clarity of color contrasts and elisions, and the blatant asymmetry of the structure infuse the painting with a vigor that belies its actual size. The exceptional quality of this picture, like the Unfurleds to which Louis related it, stems from its absolute integration of color and composition as pictorial coequals.