Morris Louis: Spectrum

This exhibition catalogue examines the profound achievement of Morris Louis, an artist who expanded the possibilities of abstract painting with his innovative manipulation of diluted acrylic paint on unprimed canvas. The volume traces Louis’s rapid artistic evolution from his early encounters with Helen Frankenthaler’s staining technique through his development of increasingly complex approaches to color and space, culminating in the monumental “Unfurled” canvases that introduced unprecedented relationships between pigment and ground. Through extensive documentation of works spanning his brief but transformative career, supported by new scholarly research, the catalogue demonstrates how Louis’s radical reconciliation of color’s optical effects with painting’s material conditions established paradigms for abstract painting that continue to resonate in contemporary practice.

Published by Yares Art, New York, 2018

Essays by Diane Upright and Alexander Nemerov

Designed by Tim Laun and Natalie Wedeking

Softcover, fully illustrated, 56 pages

_{Artworks © Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) / Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York, All Rights Reserved}