When the National Museum of the American Indian opened in Washington, D.C. this past September, it honored George Morrison (1919-2000), a member of the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. Eleven pieces of Morrison' work have been lent by UMD's Tweed Museum of Art for the year-long Smithsonian exhibition.
Morrison, an abstract painter and artist recognized around the world for his extraordinary talent and vision, is featured at the museum in a joint exhibit with Native American sculptor Alan Houser, (1914-1994, Chiricahua Apache) .
Called, "Native Modernism," the exhibit features Morrison and Houser, both prominent 20th-century Native artists. The exhibit is a retrospective showcasing about 100 of Morrison's mostly abstract paintings, drawings, sculptures and wood collages with a similar number of works by Houser.
Many Minnesota museums and collectors have joined the UMD Tweed Museum in loaning art to the show, including the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and St. Paul's Minnesota Museum of American Art. The art spans Morrison's career beginning in the 1950s with abstract drawings, to puzzle-like wood colleges assembled in the 1970s, carved totems from his 1980s work and his more recent Lake Superior "Horizon" paintings.
Morrison painted Lake Superior at different times of day in all seasons and types of weather. He captured its many moods and spiritual qualities. He said the lake was "a very powerful thing that changes by the hour, like a living human being."
Morrison is one of the most recognized and influential contemporary artists from Minnesota. "The Tweed Museum has one of the largest collections of Morrison's work in the country," said curator Peter Spooner. "Morrison had a special relationship to the Tweed. He donated a number of pieces to us and considered the Tweed his own regional museum. He felt strongly about having a representation of his work close to his home. The museum is frequently contacted to supply Morrison's work for exhibits and we are proud to lend this group of 11 works to Smithsonian."