George Morrison (1919-2000) Palisade, 1958 Oil on canvas 40 x 54 ines (101.6 x 137.2 cm) Signed and dated lower right: George Morrison 1958 PROVENANCE: Private collection, New York. EXHIBITED: Grand Central Moderns, New York, "George Morrison: Recent Paintings," April 15-May 3, 1958; Ford Foundation Program for Artists, New York, n.d. Highly distinguished across a range of media, Ojibwe artist George Morrison created thoughtful meditations on the underlying forces of the natural world throughout his decades-long career. His oeuvre is deeply rooted in his personal connections to nature, shaped by his upbringing along the remote shores of Lake Superior, blended with his formative years among the Abstract Expressionists in New York City. Born and raised in Chippewa City, Minnesota, a now-abandoned Native American fishing village, Morrison frequently cited this community as a touchstone in his artmaking, remarking, "I feel a reverence for the land and the lake. You come back to your own environment and how you grew up [...] This may have influenced my art to a certain degree. The way driftwood is indirectly related to nature." In 1943, he moved to New York on scholarship to study at the Art Students League. Morrison's first solo exhibition in New York was held at Grand Central Moderns in 1948, a label for the gallery found on the reverse of the present work. He exhibited widely, soon gaining public and critical recognition. By 1955, he was showing alongside Willem de Kooning, Philip Guston, Hans Hofmann, Franz Kline, Milton Avery, and Will Barnet. After studying and working in Paris and Aix-en-Provence in 1952–53 as a Fulbright Scholar, Morrison's painting came to synthesize European and American approaches to abstraction. He held a deep affection for New York, calling it a "magical city," now the title of his solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and, by the mid-1950s, moved within the same circles as leading Abstract Expressionists, including Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Franz Kline. Palisade by George Morrison is a large oil on canvas painting executed in 1958 that seamlessly blends his artistic talents with a deep love of nature. In the work, rich, saturated colors are gesturally applied in layers. Squares and rectangles are stacked, evoking natural rock structures or a wall. Palisades—found along rivers or coasts—are naturally occurring lines of lofty, steep, or vertical cliffs. The Hudson River Palisades, one of the most well-known examples, stretch about twenty miles from New Jersey to Nyack, New York. These rock formations, much like Morrison's abstract shapes, appear stacked in varied colors along the water's edge. Morrison's Palisade stands as a vivid homage to nature, infused with the dynamic energy of Abstract Expressionism. In his 1998 autobiography, Turning the Feather Around: My Life and Art, Morrison reflects on his artistic process during this period. Coming of age among the New York School Abstract Expressionists, his work of the 1950s developed into gestural "action painting," with spontaneous color fields and heavily impasto surfaces. At times, Morrison would use pigment directly from the tube; he then carved and scraped into these layers to create a dynamic interplay of depth and texture while maintaining a thoughtful, reflective quality. In addition to his work as a painter and sculptor, Morrison was also a dedicated teacher, with appointments at the Rhode Island School of Design in the early 1960s and the University of Minnesota for two decades. After retiring from teaching in 1983, he spent the next seventeen years working from his home and studio on the Grand Portage Indian Reservation, near his birthplace. The Minnesota Museum of American Art holds an extensive collection of Morrison's work and, in 1990, organized the retrospective exhibition "Standing in the Northern Lights." His work is also represented in major institutional collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Walker Art Center. HID12401132022 © 2026 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved www.HA.com/TexasAuctioneerLicenseNotice

Grand Central Moderns, New York, "George Morrison: Recent Paintings," April 15-May 3, 1958; Ford Foundation Program for Artists, New York, n.d.

Private collection, New York.

Presents very well. Unlined. Extremely faint stretcher lines with some light subsequent cracking. Craquelure throughout, most visible under raking light. A few very minor losses along extreme edges, most visible at upper left edge. A few very minor scattered losses in upper and lower left as well as center regions. UV examined.
Framed Dimensions 41 X 55 ines