Graves, Morris Cole

▪ 2002

      American artist (b. Aug. 28, 1910, Fox Valley, Ore.—d. May 5, 2001, Loleta, Calif.), was a self-taught painter whose works expressed a deeply felt connection with nature. After dropping out of high school, Graves became a seaman and, between 1928 and 1930, made three trips to China and Japan, where he developed an interest in East Asian art and religion, especially Zen Buddhism. He worked for the Federal Art Project in the early 1930s, and in 1936 at the Seattle (Wash.) Art Museum, he held his first one-man show. Living as a recluse on an island in Puget Sound, Graves completed some of his best-known paintings, including Blind Bird (1940) and Little Known Bird of the Inner Eye (1941). In his early works he frequently painted birds, insects, and other woodland animals. A number of his paintings were included in “Americans 1942: 18 Artists from 9 States,” a show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City that attracted widespread attention. A pacifist, Graves was confined to a military jail for 11 months during World War II and settled in Dublin after his release. In 1954–56 he painted the birds and animals of Ireland. Graves eventually returned to the U.S., where he turned his attention to creating floral paintings rather than depictions of animals. His reputation declined after the 1950s, though he held numerous retrospectives in later years, including one at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., in 1984.

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