George Lovett Kingsland Morris

Munition Factory

As a young man, George L. K. Morris studied realism with Ashcan artist John Sloan, but his fascination with abstraction prompted him to travel to France in 1929. In Paris, Morris was introduced to Cubism through the instruction of Fernand Léger and exposure to the works of Picasso and Braque.

Returning to New York in the 1930s, the artist championed abstraction and contested prevailing tastes that favored regionalism and American scene painting. Morris established himself as a critical writer and co-founded the American Abstract Artists in 1936.

Despite his commitment to non-representational work, Munition Factory has suggestions of figuration. Painted during World War II, its shapes evoke the American factories that manufactured bombs, guns, and ammunition. However, an earthy palette and overlapping geometric forms maintain a clear connection to Cubism. The work’s strongly defined lines likely relate to Morris’s wartime job as a draftsman at a Naval architect’s firm, and certainly illustrate the artist’s belief that “abstraction should be at least as well painted as realism.”