
Russet
Catalogue
- Year
- 1958
- Dimensions
- 7' 8 3/4" x 14' 5 5/8" (235.6 x 441.1 cm)
- Collection
- Museum of Modern Art
- Artist
- Morris Louis
Artist

Painting
Morris Louis was an American abstract painter who pioneered the technique of pouring and staining diluted acrylic paint directly onto unprimed canvas, creating luminous veils of color that seemed to float within the weave itself. Working in Washington, D.C., he developed his signature approach in the 1950s, moving away from gestural abstraction toward a practice centered on the optical properties of pigment and ground. His paintings, often organized into series such as the Veils and Florals, eschew both representation and compositional hierarchy, instead treating color saturation and transparency as primary formal concerns. Louis died in 1962 at age fifty, his influence on color field painting and subsequent abstract practices secured despite his brief career.
Full artist profile →More
More by Morris Louis
Purple Fill
1962 · Synthetic polymer paint on canvas
Partition
1962 · Acrylic paint on canvas
Alpha-Phi
1961 · Acrylic paint on canvas
Beta Lambda
1961 · Synthetic polymer paint on canvas
Phi
1960 · Acrylic paint on canvas
VAV
1960 · Acrylic paint on canvas
Record
Verified by WattsOS- Artist
- Morris Louis
- Year
- 1958
- Dimensions
- 7' 8 3/4" x 14' 5 5/8" (235.6 x 441.1 cm)
- Watts ID
- WW-1958-M068859
Source
- Collection
- Museum of Modern Art
- Source
- moma
- Reference
- View at source
- Status
- verified





