Morris Graves, at the age of 31, became an overnight art-world celebrity after his inclusion in the Museum of Modern Art's exhibition, Americans 1942:18 Artists from 9 States. By the time of his New York debut, Graves had already been painting seriously for roughly a decade and had produced a number of startlingly original works. These early paintings gave rise in a few short years to his clearly focused, powerfully expressive art.
Relatively little is known about the oil paintings Graves produced between 1931 and 1938. He was still in his twenties, an intense young man with no formal art training and limited exposure to the important art of the past and present, and his creative intentions were vague. Although he was passionate and committed, the precise direction his art would take was still far from clear in his mind. The early oils included here continue to exert an appealing fascination.
