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Inner Eye Eagle with Chalice

Photo: Elizabeth Mann

Inner Eye Eagle with Chalice

1941

Morris Graves

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

It is possible that the allusion here is to St. John the Evangelist, in the form of an eagle, who according to legend, when offered a chalice of poisoned wine, blessed it and thereby raised its deadly contents in the form of a snake. The tension in Graves’ image comes from the anticipation of the eagle’s action—will the evil be revealed?

"I paint to evolve a changing language of symbols, a language with which to remark upon the qualities of our mysterious capacities . . ." (Morris Graves, 1942)

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
2009.52.15
Provenance: Mrs. Elizabeth Bayley Willis (1902-2003), Bainbridge Island, Washington by 1966-?; Marshall and Helen Hatch, Seattle, Washington
Photo: Elizabeth Mann
location
Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition HistoryIn chronological order:

Eugene, Oregon, University of Oregon, Morris Graves: A Retrospective, February 8-March 13, 1966. Essay texts by Wallace S. Baldinger, Nancy Wilson Ross, Virginia Haseltine, Gerald Heard and Morris Graves. Cat. no. 57, p. 24, reproduced.

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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