George Morrison
1919–2000 · USA
About George Morrison
George Morrison (1919–2000) was an Ojibwe painter and sculptor born in Chippewa City, Minnesota, on the north shore of Lake Superior. He studied at the Minneapolis School of Art from 1938 to 1943 and at the Art Students League in New York from 1943 to 1946. He entered New York’s postwar exhibition culture through artist groups, solo exhibitions, and five Whitney annuals between 1947 and 1956.
Morrison worked across abstract painting, drawing, sculpture, and assembled wood. A Fulbright fellowship took him to France in 1952, followed by a John Hay Whitney fellowship in 1953. He later taught at the Rhode Island School of Design and the University of Minnesota. After returning to Minnesota, he established a home and studio at Red Rock near Grand Portage, where Lake Superior became the recurring subject of his late horizon paintings.
Previously handled
Spectral Flow. Jasper Sky. Red Rock Variation: Lake Superior Landscape, 1990
acrylic on canvas on board
Dappled Light Shadows (Red Rock Variation: Lake Superior Landscape), 1993
Acrylic on canvas on board
Institutional placement
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
PARADISAL WATERS: LAKE SUPERIOR LANDSCAPE, 1984
Acrylic on canvas on board
Information
George Morrison (1919–2000) was an Ojibwe painter and sculptor born in Chippewa City, Minnesota, on the north shore of Lake Superior. He studied at the Minneapolis School of Art from 1938 to 1943 and at the Art Students League in New York from 1943 to 1946. He entered New York’s postwar exhibition culture through artist groups, solo exhibitions, and five Whitney annuals between 1947 and 1956.
Morrison worked across abstract painting, drawing, sculpture, and assembled wood. A Fulbright fellowship took him to France in 1952, followed by a John Hay Whitney fellowship in 1953. He later taught at the Rhode Island School of Design and the University of Minnesota. After returning to Minnesota, he established a home and studio at Red Rock near Grand Portage, where Lake Superior became the recurring subject of his late horizon paintings.