1938, George L. K. Morris, Indian Composition -- Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York)
From the museum label: A highly regarded American Cubist painter of the 1930s, Morris made a formative trip early in his career to Paris, where he studied with Fernand Léger and met Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Constantin Brancusi. Morris later cofounded American Abstract Artists, a group dedicated to promoting nonobjective art in the United States. He believed authentic American abstraction needed to reflect the nation's unique history and culture. Indian Composition, one in a series of twelve increasingly reductive works, represents the artist's decades-long exploration of Indigenous experiences through the lens of biomorphic form and line. While it includes few overt symbols, the work features sand--a material found in art by Navajo peoples and modernist painters alike.
1938, George L. K. Morris, Indian Composition -- Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York)
From the museum label: A highly regarded American Cubist painter of the 1930s, Morris made a formative trip early in his career to Paris, where he studied with Fernand Léger and met Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Constantin Brancusi. Morris later cofounded American Abstract Artists, a group dedicated to promoting nonobjective art in the United States. He believed authentic American abstraction needed to reflect the nation's unique history and culture. Indian Composition, one in a series of twelve increasingly reductive works, represents the artist's decades-long exploration of Indigenous experiences through the lens of biomorphic form and line. While it includes few overt symbols, the work features sand--a material found in art by Navajo peoples and modernist painters alike.