Spring with Machine Age Noise No. 3

Date1957

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

Label Text"I hate the crushing ‘progress’ that is killing this Far West country . . . The roads that have been smashed through a woods in a day—a single day!—with bulldozers . . . and the houses (flashy shacks) that are being built in a day along these roads . . . breaks my heart— HELL is here and now in all its Dante-terror and its chief demons are members of the Chamber of Commerce clubs, and ‘Progress’ clubs and ‘Improvement’ clubs." (Morris Graves to Marian Willard, 1952)

I hate the crushing ‘progress’ that is killing this Far West country . . . The roads that have been smashed through a woods in a day—a single day!—with bulldozers . . . and the houses (flashy shacks) that are being built in a day along these roads . . . breaks my heart— HELL is here and now in all its Dante-terror and its chief demons are members of the Chamber of Commerce clubs, and ‘Progress’ clubs and ‘Improvement’ clubs.

— Morris Graves to Marian Willard, 1952

Object number2005.172

Provenance[Willard Gallery, New York, 1980]; Marshall and Helen Hatch, Seattle, Washington, 1980; by gift to the Seattle Art Museum, 2005 (transferred with bequest, 2012)

Photo CreditPhoto: Elizabeth Mann

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Henry Gallery, One Night of Color, Feb. 7, 1981 Osaka, Japan, National Museum of Art, Pacific Northwest Artists and Japan, Oct. 2 - Nov. 28, 1982. Seattle, Washington, Seattle Center, Bumberbiennale, Labor Day Weekend, 1987. Seattle, 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., reproduced pl. 47, p. 85.

Credit LineGift of the Marshall and Helen Hatch Collection, in honor of the 75th Anniversary of the Seattle Art Museum

Dimensions26 1/4 × 54 3/4 in. (66.7 × 139.1 cm)

MediumInk and transparent and opaque watercolor on paper