Ojibwe, b. September 30, 1919, Chippewa City, Minnesota — d. April 17, 2000, Red Rock, Minnesota

Regarded as the founding figure of Native American modernism and among the top American abstract expressionist painters is George Morrison. Also highly regarded as a master collage artist, he assembled large collages of found driftwood and woodcut in framed, puzzle-like forms. In the 1940s, he was formally trained at the Minneapolis College of Art and in the 1950s at the Art Students League in New York before receiving a Fulbright to study in France. Taking his place as part of the modern art movement in New York in the 1950s after World War II, he was friends with Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, regularly exhibiting with de Kooning, Philip Guston, Hans Hofmann, and Franz Kline. Morrison helped bring the New York Modern Art movement to Minnesota, where he was based and worked with pure form via Abstract Expressionism. Later in his career, in the mid-1970s, Morrison shifted to a new theme and started to really explore his heritage when he and his family built a home with an art studio on the Grand Portage Indian Reservation on Lake Superior, naming it Red Rock.

Rather than portraying an overt depiction of identity, Morrison was in the process of exploring his identity so he looked to nature, stating “in this search for my own identity, I seek the power of the rock, the magic of the water, the religion of the tree, the color of the wind and the enigma of the horizon.” Translating nature into paintings was Morrison’s way to navigate learning and absorption, and in turn produce self-expression. His token theme was the horizon, taking on dynamic form as colors or shapes in the eternal motion of nature. His inspiration was provided by Lake Superior, observing and documenting the temporary sight of the revered sky meeting landscape that he beheld in the moment.

His artworks are spotted today in the collections of the Heard Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Whitney Museum of American Art, US National Gallery of Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the Walker Art Center. In 1997 he was honored in a ceremony at the White House when his work was included in the Twentieth Century American Sculpture at The White House: Honoring Native Americans exhibition. In 1999 Morrison was honored as inaugural Master Artist in the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, Indianapolis.

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Chronology

1919 - George Morrison is born on September 30 in Chippewa City, outside the Grand Portage Indian Reservation

1928 - Morrison attends Hayward Indian Boarding School in Hayward, Wisconsin

1930 - Morrison has hip surgery

1938 - Morrison receives a tribal scholarship to the Minneapolis School of Art

1943 - Morrison receives the Van Derlip Traveling Scholarship for the Art Students League (ASL) in New York

1952 - Morrison receives a Fulbright fellowship to study in Paris and Antibes, France

1953 - Morrison receives a fellowship from the John Hay Whitney Foundation to work on his art and teach in Duluth

1954 - Morrison returns to New York and becomes acquainted with influential American expressionists: Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollack and Franz Kline

1960 - Morrison marries artist Hazel Belvo

1961 - Morrison and Belvo’s son, Briand, is born in New York, April 9

1963 - Morrison accepts a position on the faculty of the Rhode Island School of Design

1970 - Morrison takes a position at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis to teach American Indian studies and art

Mid-1970s - Morrison builds a home on the Grand Portage Indian Reservation and artistically reconnects with his Ojibwe roots

1983 - Morrison retires from teaching to make art full time

1999 - Morrison receives a Master Artist Award from the Eiteljorg Museum Fellowship for Native American Fine Art

2000 - Morrison dies on April 17