Biography

The Morris Graves Foundation: a registered 5019(c)(3) Private Non-Profit Foundation founded in 2000, the copyright holder of all works by Morris Cole Graves, (1910-2001), administered by Robert and Desiree Yarber, Co-founders, Trustees, and Legal stewards of Mr. Graves' legacy.

Morris Graves was a painter and transcendentalists whose still lifes of nature were greatly influenced by the environment of the Northwest and his practice of Zen Buddhism. Characterized by mysticism, his paintings embrace the surrealist quality of psychic exploration. Early in his career, Graves depicted animals and insects in ecstatic and dreamlike arrangements. Graves became well known in 1942 when his work was included in the exhibition Americans 1942: 18 artists from 9 States at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. At the time of the exhibition, he was living a reclusive life on an island in the Puget Sound. Graves moved to Northern California in 1964 and his style shifted dramatically to spare, lifelike depictions of flowers and vegetables.

His ink drawings Black Ink Radish (1964) and Black Ink Root (1964) were made the year he moved to a redwood forest in Loleta, California and are exemplary of the spare, but rich renderings of plants he began at that time. The simplicity of the image floating in empty space gives power to the plant’s intrinsic beauty. With their black ink strokes reminiscent of calligraphy—Graves was significantly influenced by Northwest painter Mark Tobey, known for his densely calligraphic paintings—the radish and root appear to take on symbolic meaning.

These works are the first by Morris Graves to enter SJMA’s permanent collection.

Biography
Graves was born in Fox Valley, Oregon in 1910 and died in Northern California in 2001.Graves has been the subject of retrospectives at the Detroit Institute of Arts; Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; San Francisco Museum of Fine Arts Legion of Honor; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. His work has been included in group exhibitions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Museum of Modern Art, New York; and Seattle Art Museum. His work in in major public collections including the Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia Museum of Art; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among others.   (acquisitions meeting February 20, 2018)

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