George Morrison
George Morrison (1919 - 2000)
Born George Morrison on September 30, 1919, in Chippewa City, MN. He was a member of the Grand Portage Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, and his Ojibwe name was Wah Wah Teh Go Nay Ga Bo, which means Standing In the Northern Lights.
He began to draw as a little child when he was very sick and in bed for a long time. Morrison earned an MFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 1943, studied at the Art Students League in NYC from 1943-1946, and earned a Fulbright Scholarship to study art in Paris in 1952.
Known for painting colorful abstract expressionist landscapes, as well as constructing landscape sculptures out of scraps of wood.
Died on April 17, 2000, in his home called Red Rock near Grand Marais, MN.
In 2022, the United States Postal Service released commemorative stamps featuring five of his landscape images. Though he is not well known by the public, George Morrison was well known in the art world. In the 1950s he worked alongside Willem deKooning and Jackson Pollock in NYC, and spent his summers in the famed artist community of Provincetown, MA. Morrison was a teacher at many art institutes including Cornell University, Penn State, Dayton Art Institute, Iowa State Teachers College, RISD, and the University of Minnesota. In all of his landscapes, he is famous for focusing on a horizon line; Morrison credited this interest in the horizon from his time spent in Minnesota on Lake Superior and Cape Cod on the Atlantic Ocean.
What do you notice? ✏️ What do you wonder? ✏️ What do you like or dislike?
George Morrison.pdfMorrison Worksheet
