Provenance
The Estate of the Artist, New York
Prviate Collection
Christie's New York, November, 2008, Private Sales
Acquired from the above by the present owner
Exhibited
Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, The Great Decade of American Abstraction: Modern Art 1960 to 1970, January15 - March 10, 1974, p. 24, no. 26 (illustrated)
New York, Museum of Modern Art; Fort Worth Art Museum; Washington, D.C., Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Morris Louis, October 6, 1986 - July 26, 1987, p. 67 (illustrated)
New York, Paul Kasmin Gallery, Morris Louis, October - December 2001, p. 31 (illustrated)
Literature
M. Fried, Morris Louis, New York, 1970, pl. 171.
D. Upright, Morris Louis: The Complete Paintings, A Catalogue Raisonné, New York, 1985, pp. 189 and 240, no. 629 (illustrated)
Artist Biography
Morris Louis
Exceptionally prolific yet meticulous over the course of his all-too-brief career, Morris Louis cemented a status as one of the most important proponents of Color Field Painting and one of the leaders of the Washington Color School. Working with such figures as Kenneth Noland and Sam Gilliam, Louis pioneered a greatly simplified form of abstraction that served as a stylistic conduit between Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism. By pouring greatly thinned washes of paint over the surface of unprimed canvas, Louis alternately achieved luminous, cheerful ribbons of color and an eerie and ethereal effect, marked by the use of chance and the participation of atmospheric elements such as gravity in the creation of his paintings.

Louis developed his mature style after a visit with Noland to the New York studio of Helen Frankenthaler at the suggestion of critic Clement Greenberg, where he learned of Frankenthaler’s innovative soak-stain technique. He used this method to pioneer no fewer than three major mature series that can be characterized by their atmospheric intensity, psychological presences, and crisp, pristine mellifluousness. Louis succumbed to lung cancer in 1962 and was honored the following year with a posthumous exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. He has been the subject of major retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the High Museum, Atlanta, and the Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.

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12

Morris Louis

Number 1-99

signed, titled and dated "MORRIS LOUIS 1962 ML#1-99" on the stretcher
magna on canvas
78 3/4 x 75 in. (200 x 190.5 cm)
Painted in 1962.

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Abstract by Nature: Paintings from the 1950s to the Present

1
Esteban Vicente
October
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2
Loló Soldevilla
Sin Título
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3
Larry Poons
Old Dan Tucker
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4
Betty Parsons
Totem Materia-R
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5
Jules Olitski
Possible Consequences
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6
Jules Olitski
Lucy's Fancy
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7
Jules Olitski
Green Jazz
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8
Thomas Nozkowski
Untitled (6-19)
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9
Thomas Nozkowski
Untitled (4-5)
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10
Kenneth Noland
Blind Passage
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11
Howard Mehring
Brilliant Corners
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12
Morris Louis
Number 1-99
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13
Hans Hofmann
Frolicking
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14
Hans Hofmann
Untitled
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15
Hans Hofmann
Untitled
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16
Jennifer Guidi
Untitled (Field SF #2F, Red and Lilac)
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17
Mark Grotjahn
Two works: Untitled (Blue and Cream)
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18
Adolph Gottlieb
Symbols and a woman
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19
Adolph Gottlieb
Pale Splash
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20
Mark Flood
Compliance Socket
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21
Friedel Dzubas
Klingsor's Summer
Estimate $235,000 - 236,000
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22
Thomas Downing
Red Fours
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23
Gene Davis
Black Watch
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24
Petra Cortright
BABES4FREE
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Abstract by Nature: Paintings from the 1950s to...

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Provenance

Exhibited

Literature

Artist Biography

Morris Louis

12

Morris Louis

Number 1-99

Abstract by Nature: Paintings from the 1950s to the Present

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