George L.K. Morris

George Lovett Kingsland Morris (1905-1975) was an American artist, writer, and editor who advocated for an "American abstract art" during the 1930s and 1940s, and is best known for his Cubist sculptures and paintings.

Morris was born into a privileged family in New York City in 1905. He was a direct descendant of Lewis Morris, a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence. Morris attended Groton School, and graduated from Yale University in 1928. From 1928 to 1929, he studied with realist painters John French Sloan and Kenneth Hayes Miller at the Art Students League of New York. In 1929, he traveled to Paris with Albert Eugene Gallatin. In Paris, he continued his studies with Fernand Léger and Amédée Ozenfant. While in Paris, he became a confirmed abstractionist, and continued writing and publishing on modern movements upon his return to New York.

During World War II, Morris worked for a naval architect's firm as a draftsman.

Although Morris exhibited frequently during the 1930s and 1940s, his paintings and sculpture received greatest recognition after the war. He remaining a dedicated practitioner of his own form of Cubism, even as colleagues and friends turned to expressionism in the postwar era.

In 1935, Morris married fellow artist Suzy Frelinghuysen. Their Lenox, Massachusetts home and studio, constructed in 1930-1941, is now a museum.

From 1937 through 1943, Morris served as editor, art critic, and patron of the relaunched radical literary magazine Partisan Review, where he advocated for abstract art. After 1947, he began writing less and focused primarily on painting and sculpture. He was also a founding member of the American Abstract Artists, serving as president of the group in the 1940s.

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