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Third Element, 1961, 85 1/2 x 51 in. (217.2 x 129.5 cm), Acrylic resin (Magna) on canvas, du458

Copyright © 2014 MICA

Rights administered by Artists Rights Society (ARS)

Collection:

Private collection, Greenwich, Connecticut, United States [2012]

Provenance:

Park International, New York

The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Blanchette Rockefeller Fund, 1963

Christie's, New York (sale 9644, lot 10), 16 May 2001

Exhibitions:

(E 68): Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art (bw, p. 96), 1963–64

(E 240): Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1972

(E 303): Worcester, Massachusetts: Worcester Art Museum; Toledo, Ohio: Toledo Museum of Art; Denver Art Museum; San Diego, California: Fine Arts Gallery; Dallas: Museum of Art; Omaha, Nebraska: Joslyn Art Museum; Greenville, South Carolina: Greenville County Museum of Art; Richmond, Virginia: Museum of Fine Arts (color, p. 11, bw, p. 63), 1975–77

(E 373): New York: Brooklyn Museum, 1980

(E 380): Bordeaux, France: Centre d’Arts Plastiques Contemporains (bw, p. 37), 1981

(E 435): New York: Museum of Modern Art; Fort Worth, Texas: Fort Worth Art Museum; Washington D.C.: Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution (color, p. 153), 1986-1987

(E 462): Grenoble, France: Musée de Grenoble; Münster, Germany: Westfälisches Landesmuseum (color, p. 91), 1996

References:

An Invitation to See—125 Paintings from the Museum of Modern Art (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1973), color, p. 141

Wolfe, Harper’s Magazine, April 1975, bw, p. 80

(B 360): Christoph 1976, color, p. 87

(B 412): Upright 1985, cat. no. 458, color, p.174

Rubin, William and ArmstrongMatthew, The William S. Paley Collection: A Taste for Modernism (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1992; revised edition 2012) color, fig. 14, p. 162

Remarks:

Although this painting usually has been dated 1962, stylistic evidence clearly places it among the group of Stripe paintings Louis made in 1961. In addition, the picture has been widely reproduced and exhibited “upside down” relative to its reproduction here. See The Practice of Morris Louis for remarks regarding the proper hanging orientation of Louis’s Stripe paintings.

ML number:

ML 5-32

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