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Lot Essay
The years of 1912-13 were pivotal in Morgan Russell's innovative exploration of the interplay between light, color and form. Through studies such as the present work, he realized that placement of color could create an emotional mood but also a sense of three-dimensionality in an otherwise flat composition, writing in one of his notebooks from June 1912: "Color is a matter of profondeur or depth to us--that is what it means at bottom warm colors coming out & up & cold colors back & down..." (as quoted in M.S. Kushner, W.C. Agee, Morgan Russell, Montclair, New Jersey, 1990, p. 57). Forming compositional balance through radiating segments, in Synchromy, Russell implies motion as well as an anthropomorphic form within the abstraction.
The reverse features a study of an interior with columns, dating circa 1921, which seems to be a transitional work between Russell's synchromist abstractions and his later inspiration from classicism. This image bears the inscription 'Sol,' referring to Louis Sol, an art publisher who knew Morgan Russell and purchased the artist's home in Aigremont, France, following Russell's death.
We would like to thank Marilyn Satin Kushner and William C. Agee for their assistance with cataloguing this work.
The reverse features a study of an interior with columns, dating circa 1921, which seems to be a transitional work between Russell's synchromist abstractions and his later inspiration from classicism. This image bears the inscription 'Sol,' referring to Louis Sol, an art publisher who knew Morgan Russell and purchased the artist's home in Aigremont, France, following Russell's death.
We would like to thank Marilyn Satin Kushner and William C. Agee for their assistance with cataloguing this work.