Untitled (c.1960)

Kyle Morris exercised his interest in abstraction throughout his career as both a painter and an art historian. After serving in the Air Force during WWII, Morris took a studio on Mercer Street in downtown Manhattan in the 1950s. Moving away from the figurative painting of his formal training, he began to make the work that would come to define his reputation. His first major solo exhibition at the Walker Art Center in 1952, displaying his masterful use of independent, vigorous colour strokes, gave way to steady exhibitions at the Stable and Kootz galleries in New York. In 1961, Morris was included in the Guggenheim’s landmark exhibition, “American Abstract Expressionists and Imagists,” (alongside Jackson Pollock (1912-1956), Willem de Kooning (1904-1997) & Robert Motherwell (1915-1991) which provided a snapshot of the state contemporary of abstract painting in America.

Kyle Morris’s work has been offered at auction multiple times, the record price being 57,441 USD for Thrust sold at Christie’s London in 2022.