Spring with Machine Age Noise No. 3

1957

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

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

Ink and transparent and opaque watercolor on paper

26 1/4 × 54 3/4 in. (66.7 × 139.1 cm)

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

2005.172

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: Elizabeth Mann

Not currently on view

Resources

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.

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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