Images(2)

Waning Moon: No. 2

Date1943

Maker Morris Graves American, born Fox Valley, Oregon, 1910; died Loleta, California, 2001

Label TextGraves’ nightmarish wartime visions were set at night. Yet, by reducing his images to pure monochrome—primarily bright white and equally brilliant blacks—he expanded his own terrifying waking dreams into recognizable manifestations of the mythic contest between the forces of light and dark, between the yin and yang, between life and death. These stark ink paintings are masterly calligraphy, Japanese in style and the products of intensive meditation on the state of the world. Poet Kenneth Rexroth saw them as allied “with the ominous, cryptic characters which Shingon monks write on six-foot sheets of paper while in a trance.”

Object number46.216

Exhibition HistoryIn Chronological Order: San Francisco, California, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Morris Graves: Retrospective Exhibition, May 21-June 29, 1948. Circuit: (The Santa Barbara Museum of Art, CA, July 4- July 31, 1948); (Los Angeles County Museum, August 7-September 6, 1948). Text by Jermayne MacAgy. No Cat. no., p. 16, not reproduced. Oakland, California, Mills College Art Gallery, North-West Coast Painters, February 15-March 7, 1948. Western Association Art Museum Directors, TRIO, 1950-51. Circuit: (San Francisco Museum of Art, 1950); (Tacoma Art League, WA, 1950), (Los Angeles County Museum, 1950); (Portland Art Museum, OR, 1950); (University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 1951); (Vancouver Art Gallery, B.C., 1951); (Art Center of Greater Victoria, B.C., 1951). Houston, Texas, Contemporary Arts Museum, Contemporary Calligraphers: John Marin, Mark Tobey, Morris Graves, April 12-May 13, 1956. No cat. no., not reproduced. Valparaiso, Indiana, Sloan Galleries of American Paintings, Valparaiso University, Art of the Northwest Coast, January 28-February 24, 1962. Cat. no. 11. Exhibition listing. [Seattle Art Museum lent 27 paintings from permanent collection]. Saint Paul, Minnesota, Saint Paul Art Center, Paintings and Drawings By Morris Graves, (2nd Biennial National Drawing Competition) October 10-November 3, 1963. Osaka, Japan, Expo '70, Washington State Pavilion, 1970. Richland, Washington, Jaid Gallery, Representative Exhibition of Washington Pavilion at Expo '70, 1970. Seattle, Seattle Art Museum, Northwest Traditions, June 29-November 19, 1978. No cat. no., p. 15, reproduced. Washington D.C., The Phillips Collection, Morris Graves: Vision Of The Inner Eye, April 9-May 29, 1983. Circuit: (Greenville County Museum of Art, SC, July 1-August 28, 1983); (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, September 15-Novermber 27, 1983); (The Oakland Museum, CA, January 18-March 25, 1984); (Seattle Art Museum, WA, April 19-July 8, 1984); (San Diego Museum of Art, CA, July 24-September 4, 1984). Text by Ray Kass with Introduction by Theodore F. Wolff. No cat. no., reproduced. Plate no. 50. Seattle, Seattle Art Museum, Views and Visions In The Pacific Northwest June 7 - September 2, 1990. No catalogue. Seattle, Seattle Art Museum, Light, Shadow, and Gesture: Paintings by Northwest Artists, August 14, 1997-August 2, 1998. No catalogue. Seattle, Seattle Art Museum, Morris Graves and Seattle, November 1, 2001-October 20, 2002. [Curated by Tara Young and Chiyo Ishikawa]. [Exhibition celebrating the life and work of Morris Graves, who died in May 2001]. No catalogue. Seattle, Seattle Asian Art Museum, Night Sounds: Nocturnal Visions of Mark Tobey and Morris Graves - A Northwest Summer, May 4, 2006-October 15, 2006. No catalogue. Published ReferencesSandor, Richard, "On the Teeter-totter of Ego, An Interview with Robert Johnson, Parabola, Vol. XXII, No. 2, p. 21, Summer 1997 The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., "Morris Graves: Vision Of The Inner Eye", Ray Kass, Published by Braziller, NY, 1983, Cat. #50, ill. Kingsbury, Martha and Sarah Clark. "Northwest Traditions." Seattle, WA: Seattle Art Museum, 1978, p. 15 University of Oregon Museum of Art, Eugene, "Morris Graves: A Retrospective", 1966, cat. #44, p. 53, ill. p. 13 Saint Paul Art Center, Minnesota, "Paintings and Drawings By Morris Graves", 1963, cat. #13, ill. Sloan Galleries, Valparaiso, Indiana, "Art Of Northwest Coast", 1962, No. 11 San Francisco, California, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1948, cat., p. 16

Credit LineEugene Fuller Memorial Collection

Dimensions26 1/2 x 30 1/2 in. (67.3 x 77.5 cm)

MediumInk, transparent and opaque watercolor onJapanese paper