Morris Louis | Guide to Drawings

This website documents all the known drawings by Morris Louis. The catalogue raisonné of drawings, The Drawings of Morris Louis, by Diane Upright [Headley] was published in 1979 and accompanied an exhibition organized by the National Collection of Fine Arts, a Smithsonian Institution (known today as the Smithsonian American Art Museum). Refer to EXHIBITION HISTORY for more information about this exhibition. The 519 drawings presented on this website reside in public and private collections. Notably, 414 drawings are currently held by the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard Art Museums. Other institutions that own Morris Louis drawings include The Baltimore Museum of Art; The Phillips Collection; Smithsonian American Art Museum; Walker Art Center; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth; Tel Aviv Art Museum; and the National Gallery of Australia.

In preparation for the publication of the 1979 catalogue, twenty-five sketchpads that belonged to the Estate of Morris Louis were dismantled to permit the photographing, exhibition, and proper storage of the individual works. All pages were removed from each sketchpad and numbered in sequence from front to back. In instances where the cover of the pad had been used for a drawing, it was assigned the first number in the group. Sheets with drawings on both sides were assigned a single number with the suffix A given to the recto, and B given to the verso. For example, D188A and D188B represent a single sheet with drawings on both sides.

Estate drawings were embossed with a small seal containing the letters ML circumscribed by an oval. This seal appears in the lower right corner of almost every drawing. The exceptions represent instances in which it was later determined that the proper orientation of the drawing differed from that originally perceived, or a few cases in which the drawing was not embossed with the seal. Any variations have been noted in the catalogue entries.

The following chart provides a concordance of the drawings (D1 - D503) that were assigned numbers during photographing. The first column gives the number of the estate sketchpad or portfolio in which the drawing was located. This sketchpad number is an inventory designation and has no other significance. The numbers assigned to the drawings are shown in the second column. The total number of drawings in each sketchpad is indicated in the third column. Drawings on the recto and verso of a single sheet were counted separately. Drawings dated by the artist are indicated in the fourth column. The year is followed by the number of drawings in the sketchpad that bears that date. For example, 2:1953 indicates that two drawings in the sketchpad were dated 1953 by the artist. Certain inconsistencies occurred during the photographing and numbering procedure. Each is explained under "Notes" which also includes other pertinent information about the drawings.

Authentication

This website includes all paintings and drawings from the original print versions of the catalogues raisonnés by Diane Upright: Morris Louis: The Complete Paintings, published in hard copy by Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York, 1985; and The Drawings of Morris Louis, published in hard copy by the Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC, 1979. A few works that were authenticated after those publications were printed have also been included. No paintings or drawings that appear on this site as of the original launch date of May 1, 2014 will be removed.

SKETCHPAD NUMBER	NUMBERS ASSIGNED TO DRAWINGS	NUMBER OF DRAWINGS IN SKETCHPAD	NUMBER OF DATED DRAWINGS	NOTES
None	D1, D2	2	2:1948	Louis gave these two drawings to their present owner in 1953. Each was selected from a different sketchpad. The size and type of paper and the nature of the imagery suggest that one was removed from sketchpad 17 and the other sketchpad 18.
2	D3-D27	25	None	This sketchpad was probably used in Florida (see notes for sketchpad 5). The horned animal that appears in several of these drawings also appears in D39, which is dated 1949, a likely date for this group.
3	D28-D38	12	None	The imagery of many of these drawings is quite similar to that of D1 and D2, both of which are dated 1948, a likely date for this group.
None	D39	1	1:1949	See below, notes for sketchpad 5
None	D40	2	None	See below, notes for sketchpad 1.
None	D41	1	None	See below, notes for sketchpad 7.
1	D42-D46; D204-D214; (D40?)	16 (17?)	2:1953	The break in continuity of numbering resulted from an initial attempt to photograph together drawings from different sketchpads whose imagery was closely related. It was soon perceived that the magnitude of the project made such a task impossible and the plan was abandoned. D40 had been removed from a sketchpad at an earlier date when it was given to its present owner. The size and type of paper and the nature of the imagery strongly suggest that it originally belonged to this sketchpad. Although two of the drawings are dated 1953, some of the pages are very similar to drawings dated 1949. Louis may have used the tablet at two different times, or he may have reworked earlier drawings at a later date.
17	D47-D65	23	None	This sketchpad probably dates from about 1948, based upon comparison with drawings D1 and D2. Drawings D64 and D65 were looses pages found stored in this pad.
12	D66-D73	10	None	Only D72 was actually attached to this tablet; all others were loose sheets stored in it. Both front and back covers were drawn on. The back cover bears the identifying stamp of a New York art supply store.
18	D74-D118	50	None	D91-D118 were loose pages stored in this sketchpad.
23	D119-D136	18	None	In 1950 Louis was commissioned by the United States Public Health Services (PHS) to design a tuberculosis display. The display was set up at a convention in San Francisco to which Louis accompanied his wife, who was then employed by the PHS. During his visit Louis purchased this sketchpad and sketchpad 26, both of which bear the address of a San Francisco art supply store on their covers. The drawings in both sketchpads are repetitions of a very few different images, most of which related to ideas introduced in the PHS commission designs.
26	D137-D155	19	None	See above, notes for sketchpad 23.
None	D156	1	None	This drawing was selected by Louis to hang in his home.
22	D157-D177	21	None
25	D178-D186	9	None
21	D187-D203	34	None
1	D204-D214	11	2:1953	See above, notes for sketchpad 1.
4	D215-D232	18	11:1953
5	D233-D248; D39	18	1:1949 1:1953	This sketchpad was purchased in Miami, Florida, as indicated by an art supply store’s stamp on its cover. A pattern of tiny holes, apparently caused by worms, was found on each sheet; the number of holes increases from two in the cover and first four pages to eight holes in the last four pages. D39 had been removed from the pad at an earlier date when it was given to its present owner. The presence of two worm hole and holes from the spiral ring binder, both unique to this pad, indicate that D39 belonged to it. These facts were not known at the time of photographing, which accounts for the disparity in numbering. As is the case with sketchpad 1, this pad seems to have been used at two different times.
6	D250-D260; (D249?)	11 (12?)	7:1953 (8?)	The cover of sketchpad 6 is identical to that of sketchpad 5, although no identifying stamp is present and the spiral ring binder is a different type. It seems likely that sketchpad 6 was also purchased in Miami. D249 had been removed at an earlier date; the holes from the binding and all other aspects indicate that it belonged to this sketchpad.
7	D261-D278; D41	20	8:1953	D41 was found as a loose page stored in this sketchpad. It is not known when it was placed there or who did so. It is possible that Louis was responsible, since its imagery is a likely source for the more freely rendered drawing D262. The disparity in numbering resulted from a decision to photograph and number D41 with a group of stylistically similar works.
8	D279-D288	10	4:1953
9	D289-D306	18	10:1953
11	D307-D344	38	None	D335-D344 were found as loose sheets stored in this sketchpad. They are on the same type of tracing paper and display imagery quite similar to those of the attached sheets.
13	D345-D364	20	None
14	D365-D376	13	None
15	D377-D396	28	None	D396 is a smaller sheet that was stored in this sketchpad.
16	D397-D412	16	4:1953
19	D413-D427	16	None	D421-D427 were found as loose sheets stored in this sketchpad.
20	D428-D474	62	1:1953	Only D428-D445 were attached to the sketchpad. All other sheets were loose, with the exception of D545-D460, which constituted a small sketchpad stored in the larger one.
24	D475-D493	19	None	D492 and D493 were found as loose sheets stored in this sketchpad.
None	D494	1	None	This drawing belongs to a private collection; it was photographed and numbered with the estate drawings.
10	D495-D503	10	1:1953 1:1940 1:1941 1:1953	For their protection this group of guoaches was stored in portfolio 10 by Louis’s widow.

Unless otherwise indicated, all of the drawings are on paper, unsigned and embossed with the Estate seal in the lower right corner. Dimensions are in inches followed by centimeters, height preceding width, and are of the sheet size. Inches are rounded off to the next highest one-sixteenth of an inch and centimeters are rounded off to the next highest millimeter.