The Genesis of Life Lay Deep and Anticipant Under the Sky

Date1944

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

Label TextGraves’ reference is to Beryl Markham’s deeply poetic account of her life in Africa, published in 1942, in which she saw the realm of pure nature as governed by fundamental life forces: "You could expect many things of God at night when the campfire burned before the tents. You could look through and beyond the veils of scarlet and see shadows of the world as God first made it and hear the voices of the beasts He put there. It was a world as old as Time, but as new as Creation’s hour had left it. . . It held the genesis of life and lay deep and anticipant under the sky." (Beryl Markham, West With the Night, 1942)

Graves’ reference is to Beryl Markham’s deeply poetic account of her life in Africa, published in 1942, in which she saw the realm of pure nature as governed by fundamental life forces:

You could expect many things of God at night when the campfire burned before the tents. You could look through and beyond the veils of scarlet and see shadows of the world as God first made it and hear the voices of the beasts He put there. It was a world as old as Time, but as new as Creation’s hour had left it. . . . It held the genesis of life and lay deep and anticipant under the sky.

— Beryl Markham, West With the Night, 1942

Object number2009.52.16

ProvenanceThe artist, to [Willard Gallery, New York]; sold to Marshall (1918-2008) and Helen (died 1996) Hatch, Seattle, Washington, probably around June 1987; by bequest to Seattle Art Museum, 2008

Photo CreditPhoto: Elizabeth Mann

Exhibition HistorySeattle, 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 p.83, pl. 45.

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

Dimensions26 3/4 x 52 1/2 in. (67.9 x 133.4 cm)

MediumInk and transparent and opaque watercolor on paper