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Earth

A work made of acrylic on canvas.

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  • A work made of acrylic on canvas.

Date:

1959

Artist:

Morris Louis
American, 1912-1962

About this artwork

Morris Louis lived and worked in and aroundWashington, D.C., where he was relatively isolated from developments in the New York art world. The goal of his art, in which color is both the vehicle and the content, was to realize the complete fusion of foreground and background, hue and texture. Louis’s saturated stripes and misty veils of color were achieved through a careful process of staining sheets of raw canvas, hung from vertical scaffolding, with thin washes of plastic-based paints. The artist allowed the paint to move over the canvas, guiding its flow with the curves of the loose canvas and a cloth-covered stick. Epic in size, Earth is part of the series Bronze Veils, paintings that Louis inverted after they were
completed so that the paint appears to flow from bottom to top.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Contemporary Art

Artist

Morris Louis

Title

Earth

Place

United States (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1959

Medium

Acrylic on canvas

Dimensions

234.6 × 352.4 cm (92 3/8 × 138 3/4 in.)

Credit Line

Grant J. Pick Purchase Fund

Reference Number

1969.246

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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