Morris Louis (1912-1962)
Property from the Advanta Collection
Morris Louis (1912-1962)

Red Go

细节
Morris Louis (1912-1962)
Red Go
signed, titled and dated '"RED GO" Louis 62' (on the reverse)
acrylic on canvas
80½ x 34 in. (204.4 x 86.3 cm.)
Painted in 1961.
来源
Galerie Lawrence, Paris and Galleria dell'Ariete, Milan
Kasmin Ltd., London
O. Kelly Anderson, New York
Robert Elkon Gallery, New York
Waddington Galleries, London
Alistair McAlpine, London
Waddington Galleries, London
Dr. Slotover, London
Waddington Galleries, London and Andre Emmerich Gallery, New York
Waddington Galleries, London
Mary and George Bloch Collection, Hong Kong
Will Ameringer Fine Art Inc., New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner, 1998
出版
Art International, 1963, p. 52 (illustrated).
D. Upright, Morris Louis: The Complete Paintings, New York, 1985, no. 489, pp. 177 and 231 (illustrated in color).
展览
Paris, Galerie Lawrence, Morris Louis, November-December 1962.
Republic of San Marino, IV Biennale Internazionale d'arte, July-October 1963, p. 107 (illustrated).
St. Louis, The Greenberg Gallery, Morris Louis, June 1977.
Zurich, Galerie Andre Emmerich, Morris Louis, September-October 1977.
Basel, Art 9/78, June 1978.
London, Waddington Galleries II, Morris Louis Paintings, May 1979 (illustrated in color).

拍品专文

Morris Louis usually signed and dated paintings only when they left his studio to be released for a sale or an exhibition. In the present work, the 1962 date on the reverse reflects this release not the execution of the painting, which stylistically conforms to his works from the previous year (D. Upright, Morris Louis: The Complete Paintings, New York, 1985, p. 231).


"The effect conveys a sense not only of color as somehow, disembodied, and therefore more purely optical, but also of color as a thing that opens and expands the picture plane. The suppression of the difference between painted and unpainted surfaces causes pictorial space to leak through-or rather; to seem about to leak through."(Clement Greenberg)

Belonging to his series of Stripe paintings, Red Go is a magnificent example of Morris Louis's originality and complexity as an artist. An apotheosis and culmination of his earlier work, Red Go, executed in 1961, is not only of the great Color Field paintings, it also points to Louis as a prominent influence on the minimalist movement. Concentrating on the purity of color and form, as an artist he was constantly discovering new ways to maintain the separate identities of color and space, as evident in this significant example.

A solitary, intensely self-critical man, Louis had by the early 1950s arrived at modest success as a painter and teacher in Washington D.C. Through his friendships with painter Kenneth Noland and art critic Clement Greenberg, he became acquainted with the work of Jackson Pollock and Helen Frankenthaler, whose influence on his working methods and conception of painting was deeply significant. Working in a variety of series, that included the dramatic pictorial solution of the Unfurleds (1960-61) and the colorful, controlled and refined Stripe paintings (1961-62) Louis produced effects of incredible delicacy and subtlety.

Using a linear stain technique, which had been perfected over time, Louis's series of Stripe paintings practiced positioning parallel bands of color against a pure white field to explore both the vibrant rhythm and intensity of color. In Red Go Louis creates successive waves of pigment that are thinly poured onto the canvas, which create a stain of color that is visually continuous. The result is a stream of colors that should be cacophonous and conflicting, but instead produce a harmonious and pleasurable optical experience.