Morris Louis

1912 - 1962
US

Born Morris Bernstein in Baltimore, Maryland, Louis studied art at the Maryland Institute of Fine and Applied Arts from 1929 to 1933. He worked for the WPA Federal Art Project until the late 1930's.

Labeled a "post-Abstract Expressionist" painter, Louis evolved a style that produced a complete integration of paint and canvas. Forsaking the three dimensions, Louis worked on emeshing spectrums of color, differentiated by hue, filling his canvases with "color space" without perspective. Louis was greatly influenced by the work of Helen Frankenthaler, Jackson Pollock, and Robert Motherwell. His work is represented in the Allentown Museum, Detroit Institute of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Museum of Modern Art, the Phillips Collection (Washington, D.C.), the Guggenheim and the Whitney.