Visit the home of American Abstract Artists George L.K. Morris and Suzy Frelinghuysen, set on a 46-acre estate in the heart of Lenox, Massachusetts. View their paintings, frescoes, and sculpture; experience their exquisite collection of American and European Cubist Art.
In 1933, George L.K.Morris and Alexander Calder exhibited together at the Berkshire Museum. Morris most likely purchased the mobile from Calder at that time. The two artists went on to exhibit at the highly publicized "Five Contemporary American Concretionists" show in 1936 at the Reinhardt Galleries in New York.
The mobile's installation in the Crane Room at the Berkshire Museum celebrates the homecoming for the Calder collection which has been on tour in New York, Paris, and Toronto. The Berkshire Museum was the first to give Calder a public commission, the mobiles in the theater. They also gave Morris his first exhibit.
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Joaquin Torres-Garcia, known for breaking the cycle of subordination to Western art, connected modernism with the pre-Columbian art of his Uruguayan homeland. He was assistant to Antonio Gaudi in Barcelona and one of the founders of the “Circle & Square” constructivist group in Paris in 1930, headed by Mondrian. Yet, he incorporated the symbolic imagery of Latin American indigenous cultures into his work. Figures from the traditional indigenous symbolism represent man, knowledge, science and the city.
FMH&S is lending a 1932 Torres-Garcia to Constructive Spirit: Abstract Art in South & North America, 1920’s-50’s, opening February 17th at the Newark Museum, NJ. This is the first exhibit to present the Pan-American scope of geometric abstraction and investigates the conceptual connections and exchanges that existed between artists from South and North America, highlighting a vital period when painters, sculptors, photographers and filmmakers infused the language of abstraction with new perspectives and innovations.
The painting was collected by GLK Morris in the early 1930’s through his associations with Jean Arp, Helion and Mondrian, who all exhibited with Torres-Garcia in Paris during that period.
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“Indian Composition”, a 1942 George L.K. Morris painting owned by the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C. has been replicated and enlarged to 150’ tall to screen a luxury condominium project in Seoul, Korea. The condominiums are called Mega Hills and sell for $3 million dollars. They are located in the fashionable Gangnam section of Seoul, on Cheongdam Street which is sometimes referred to as the Fashion and Art Street or Rodeo Street, referring to Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, California.
Mega-Mark, the construction company for the project, chose the Morris work for the giant screen to express the artistic and modern flavor of their high end condominiums in a neighborhood full of art galleries and boutiques.
Frelinghuysen Morris House and Studio in Lenox, which owns the copyright to the painting, was paid a fee for the use of the image. Director Kinney Frelinghuysen would not disclose the figure but remarked, “It pays for the fully assessed property taxes the Foundation pays to the towns of Lenox and Stockbridge.” He added, “I love that a piece of artwork shown in Seoul can be used to beautify a construction project and pay for schoolbooks in Lenox and Stockbridge”.
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