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Photo: Elizabeth Mann
Morning
Photo: Elizabeth Mann

Morning

Dateprobably 1933
Maker Morris Graves American, born Fox Valley, Oregon, 1910; died Loleta, California, 2001
Label TextMorning is unequivocally an image of retreat, of the pain of facing the light, of the fear of facing the day. If it is a self- portrait, it suggests the young Graves’ unsettled emotional state as he considered the state of the world—which he did in his prophetic Millennium Light of this same time period—and gave form to his awakening fears. Perhaps, too, the painting depicts something of the self-consciousness he displayed in the haunting Moor Swan, as Graves considered what he had come to see as his separateness from others—as an artist, a pacifist, and a homosexual man.
Object number2009.52.101
ProvenanceEunice, Clise, Seattle (who cut several inches off the top of the painting); [Greenfield's Auction Galleries, Seattle, March 1964, as Man on Bed]; Martin Selig, Seattle; sold through [Foster/White Gallery, Seattle]; sold to Marshall and Helen Hatch, Seattle, May 8, 1982; by bequest to Seattle Art Museum
Photo CreditPhoto: Elizabeth Mann
Exhibition HistoryWashington, D.C., The Phillips Collection, Morris Graves: Vision of the Inner Eye, Apr. 9 - May 29, 1983 (Greenville, South Carolina, Greenville County Museum of Art, July 1 - Aug. 28, 1983; New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Sept. 15 - Nov. 27, 1983; Oakland, Calfiornia, The Oaklnd Museum, Jan. 18 - Mar. 25, 1984; Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Apr. 19 - July 8, 1984; San Diego, California, San Diego Museum of Art, July 24 - Sept. 4, 1984). Text by Ray Kass. Cat. no. 3. La Conner, Washington, Museum of Northwest Art, Morris Graves: The Early Works, June 25 - Sept. 30, 1998 (Stamford, Connecticut, Whitney Museum of American Art, Mar. 12 - June 3, 1998; Greenville, South Carolina, Greenville County Museum of Art, Mar. 17 - May 16, 1999; Beaumont, Texas, Art Museum of Southeast Texas, Sept. 9 - Nov. 30, 1999). Text by Theodore F. Wolff. No cat. no., pp. 44, 67, reproduced p. 45 [dated ca. 1933]. Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Morris Graves and Seattle, Nov. 1, 2001 - Oct. 20, 2002. No catalogue. Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Modernism in the Pacific Northwest: The Mythic and the Mystical, June 19 - Sept. 7, 2014. Text by Patricia Junker. Not in catalogue.
Credit LineGift of the Marshall and Helen Hatch Collection, in honor of the 75th Anniversary of the Seattle Art Museum
Dimensions38 x 47 in. (96.5 x 119.4 cm) Framed: 46 x 55 in. (116.8 x 139.7 cm)
MediumOil on burlap
Photo: Scott Leen
Morris Graves
ca. 1935
Object number: 89.187
Photo: Scott Leen
Morris Graves
1936
Object number: 36.32
Photo: Scott Leen
Morris Graves
1934
Object number: 2023.11.188
Burial of the New Law II
Morris Graves
ca. 1936
Object number: 73.4
New Icon
Morris Graves
1964
Object number: 70.23
Photo: Paul Macapia
Morris Graves
1933
Object number: 85.268
Duck
Morris Graves
ca. 1932
Object number: 63.136
Photo: Scott Leen
Morris Graves
1933
Object number: 33.219
Photo: Scott Leen
Morris Graves
1936
Object number: 36.33
Pinioned Gander
Morris Graves
1954
Object number: 96.79
Photo: Elizabeth Mann
Morris Graves
1933-34
Object number: 2009.52.98
Photo: Elizabeth Mann
Morris Graves
ca. 1937
Object number: 2009.52.102