Morris Graves

Morris Cole Graves was born 1910, Fox Valley, Oregon. Morris was named in honor of Morris Cole, a favored minister of his Methodist parents. Graves was a predominately self-taught artist with natural understandings of color, line and strongly influenced by Zen. Graves dropped out of high school after his sophomore year, and between 1928 and 1931, along with his brother Russell, visited all the major Asian ports of call as a steamship hand for the American Mail Line. Morris Grave's early life connections and travels to Asia would established his foundation in life and art. Morris went back to High School in Beaumont, Texas in 1931 and finished in 1932 while living with relatives. Graves then returned to Seattle, and received his first recognition as an artist when his painting Moor Swan (1933) won an award in the Seattle Art Museum's Northwest Annual Exhibition and was purchased by the museum.
Graves began his lifelong study of Zen Buddhism in the early 1930s. In 1937, Graves traveled to New York City to study with the controversial Father Divine's International Peace Mission movement in Harlem. In 1940, Graves began building a house, which he named “The Rock", on an isolated promontory on his Fidalgo Island property. Graves spent time in isolation with nature and he was interrupted in the Spring of 1942 when the Museum of Modern Art in New York opened its Americans 1942: 18 Artists from 9 States exhibition. Critics raved over Graves' contributions. The U.S. Army came looking for Graves as he had failed to achieve the “conscientious objector" status he had applied for when he was drafted into the Army in 1942. There was also suspicion of Graves for housing George Nakashima and his Japanese-born wife Miriam at Graves “Rock" retreat home, prior to their being sent to the Minidoka relocation center. Graves was finally released from military service in March 1943 after spending the year prior in military prison. The Willard Gallery was a strong supporter of Morris Graves in the 1940s.
In September 1953, Life magazine ran a major article on the "Mystic Painters of the Northwest", focusing on Graves, Mark Tobey, Kenneth Callahan, and Guy Anderson as the major figures of the “Northwest School" of artists. In 1965 Graves purchased 380 acres of redwood forest property, around a five-acre lake, in Loleta, California, near Eureka. Graves would live on this property, which he called simply “The Lake" for the remaining 35 years of his life. Grave's art embodies nature, harmony, Zen and a true mystical presence. Morris Grave's works are exhibited by many important art museums and collections, including: Whitney Museum, Metropolitan Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Smithsonian, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Seattle Art Museum, Carnegie Museum, Hirshhorn Museum, Tate Modern, Albright-Knox Gallery and the Phillips Collection.