Discipline: Visual Art – painting

George Morris

Discipline: Visual Art – painting
MacDowell Fellowships: 1969, 1970, 1973
George Morris was an American artist, writer, and editor who advocated for an "American abstract art" during the 1930s and 1940s, and is best known for his Cubist sculptures and paintings. While in Paris, he became a confirmed abstractionist, and continued writing and publishing on modern movements upon his return to New York. During World War II, Morris worked for a naval architect's firm as a draftsman. Although Morris exhibited frequently during the 1930s and 1940s, his paintings and sculpture received greatest recognition after the war. He remained a dedicated practitioner of his own form of Cubism, even as colleagues and friends turned to expressionism in the postwar era. From 1937 through 1943, Morris served as editor, art critic, and patron of the relaunched radical literary magazine Partisan Review, where he advocated for abstract art. After 1947, he began writing less and focused primarily on painting and sculpture. He was also a founding member of the American Abstract Artists, serving as president of the group in the 1940s. Morris' artworks appear in numerous museum collections, including The Phillips Collection and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. He is best known for his brightly colored, geometric hard-edge paintings, such as Recessional, from 1950, in the collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art.

Studios

Cheney

George Morris worked in the Cheney studio.

Cheney Studio was given to MacDowell by Mrs. Benjamin P. Cheney and Mrs. Karl Kauffman. Like Barnard Studio, Cheney is a low, broadly massed bungalow. Sited on a steep westward slope, its porches are supported on wooden posts and fieldstone with lattices. Although it still retains its appealing character, the original design of the shingled building…

Learn more