Native Modernism: The Art of George Morrison and Allan Houser

September 21, 2004–November 6, 2005

Washington, DC

Native Modernism explores the work of George Morrison and Allan Houser, the most prominent U.S. artists of a formative generation in Native American art. Working from the mid-1930s to the late 1990s, each rebelled against ideas of what Native art must look like to evolve a personal and original style.

George Morrison was a painter of color and light. As he traveled from his birthplace in Minnesota to New York and beyond, his evolving interest in Euro-American art resulted in an individualistic and vibrantly colorful form of abstract expressionism.

Allan Houser is best known as a sculptor, and his sphere of success and influence was in the Southwest. Blending Native subject matter with a sleek modernist aesthetic, his elegant and refined art represents Native peoples in stone and metal with dignity and compassion.

Together, these men profoundly influenced later generations of Native artists.