A 1937 oil on canvas entitled “Alaska” by George L.K. Morris sold for $19,000, more than double the estimate at Clarke Auction Gallery March 16th. It features the interesting quality of a double sided canvas in which the verso abstract painting is protected by plexi.

Morris was an outspoken and important actor in the development and preservation of abstract art as a respected artform at the start of the modern movement. In 1937, his art magazine Plastique served as a platform for his addressing the critics of the new artists in the scope of art history. He eloquently defended

and propelled new art by saying, “The bare expressiveness of shape and position of shape must be pondered anew; the weight of color (and) the direction of line and angle can be restudied until the roots of primary tactile reaction shall be perceived again."
Contemporary artists, he maintained, "must strip art inward to those very bones from which all cultures take their life." His words reflect the ongoing nature of new art and the sometimes controversial environment that contemporary art is constantly born into, even today.