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Eagle of the Inner Eye

Photo: Elizabeth Mann

Eagle of the Inner Eye

1941

Morris Graves

born Fox Valley, Oregon, 1910; died Loleta, California, 2001

The eagle—emblematic in Christianity of the word of God—here is presented as at one with the rock. Rendered in dry white gouache, the bird appears almost calcified, its red, defiant eyes a stunning contrast to its immobile, immaterial body. Rockbound, the bird has been stilled and silenced. The enigma is, will it survive?




Opaque watercolor on architectural tracing paper
15 1/2 × 21 in. (39.4 × 53.3cm)
Gift of the Marshall and Helen Hatch Collection, in honor of the 75th Anniversary of the Seattle Art Museum
2009.52.103
Provenance: Chris Middendorf, New York; [George Belcher, Inc., San Francisco, California]; sold to Marshall and Helen Hatch, Seattle, Washington; to Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, 2009
Photo: Elizabeth Mann
location
Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition History{Arts Club exhibition, 1943.}

Seattle, Washington, Henry Art Gallery, Art in America: Washington Collection, Spiritualism in Northwest Art, July 22 - Aug. 29, 1982.

Carcasonne, France, Musée des Beaux Arts de Carcasonne, Seattle Style, June - Aug., 1987. Not in catalogue.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Morris Graves and Seattle, Nov. 1, 2001 -Oct. 20, 2002. No catalogue.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Modernism in the Pacific Northwest: The Mythic and the Mystical, June 19 - Sept. 7, 2014. Text by Patricia Junker. No cat. no., p. 21, reproduced p. 24, pl. 11.

Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

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