Today we’d like to introduce you to Robert C. Morris.
Bob always knew he’d be an artist. Growing up in Queens, New York, he could take advantage of all the art the City had to offer. He went to Yale University to study with Josef Albers and other luminaries of the early 1950s. After receiving his BFA, he fulfilled his ROTC obligation in the Army, ending up at Fort Hood, Texas. From there he explored Houston. In 1957 it wasn’t so tough — wandering into the University of Houston Art Department one day, he met the chairman, feet on his desk, chatting with his wife. After a short interview and the job offer, the chairman turned to his wife: “See Gladys? I told you someone would come by sooner or later.”
After about a year, Bob was tapped by the Houston Museum of Fine Arts to be Exhibition Curator for the new Meis van der Rohe wing. From there he became the Director of the Contemporary Arts Museum of Houston, bringing in (to the gasps of some Board members) avant-garde shows that introduced emerging artists including Rothenberg, Motherwell, Indiana, Ray Johnson, Jasper Johns, H.C. Westerman, Yves Tanguy.
But the East drew Bob and his wife, Gitta, a journalist, back and in 1960 they moved to Connecticut where Bob had spent happy boyhood summers. At the University of Bridgeport – among colleagues who were also Albers disciples – he taught the Albers color and basic design courses that had influenced his own work. In 1970, he received his MFA at UT Austin before returning to Connecticut to teach at Trinity College, Hartford. Throughout his career, he experienced frustrating mix-ups with the minimalist sculptor – the other Robert Morris — also born in 1931. Bob has won numerous awards for his work and has showed his paintings and drawings with excellent reviews in Texas, New York and Connecticut.
Please tell us about your art.
“I had always painted with acrylics, but 14 years ago, when my studio shrank to a small room in our condo in Guilford, CT, I began doing only drawings. Each drawing is done with micro-pens of various diameters and points, on archival drawing paper. I also use many of the drafting tools that architects used to use before CAD.”
“I’m an architectural enthusiast but a non-participant. It’s so much more comfortable practicing without clients (and without a license.) It also looks like I’ve drifted into city planning – but so has everyone else, to witness development in lower Manhattan.”
“Keith Jarrett is a musician who can improvise on music, from folk songs to Shostakovich. That’s what I do but with objects rather than sound. Each of my drawings is arrived at in the same way a musician might improvise on a given song or melody. Usually I start with a building that gets my attention, and I take it from there. With the sort of drawing I do, it’s almost impossible to correct a mistake or reverse a wrong direction, so a lot of time and brooding goes into it. If I were a photographer it would be called a photo montage.”
We often hear from artists that being an artist can be lonely. Any advice for those looking to connect with other artists?
In Houston, in the late 1950s, Bob was a part of a compatible, supportive group of inventive artists including Jack Boynton, Jim Love, Lowell Collins, Richard Stout, the Gadbois’s, and many others, some of whom are still there. Those were rare and wonderful times.
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
Work can be seen and purchased on the website www.artistrobertmorris.com. The William Reaves Gallery/Sarah Foltz Fine Art at 2143 Westheimer, Houston, has many small paintings by Morris from the 1960s and ’70’s. Work will be shown and sold at Bob’s Guilford, CT studio at the annual Shoreline Arts Trail Open Studios weekend November 10 and 11. Information at gittamorris@outlook.com
Contact Info:
- Address: 18 Fair Street, Apartment 1, Guilford, CT 06437
- Website: www.artistrobertmorris.com
- Email: gittamorris@outlook.com
- Facebook: artistrobertmorris
Gitta Morris
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