The Drawing Center

An exhibition of drawing-based works by the late American artist Ree Morton (1936 –1977), will be on view in the Main Gallery and Drawing Room from September 18 – December 18, 2009. Ree Morton: At the Still Point of the Turning World highlights Morton’s influential body of work, remarkably all produced in a single decade between her decision to turn to art full-time in the late 1960s and her tragic death in an automobile accident in 1977, shortly before her 41st birthday. While reflecting many of the currents of post-Minimal art of the 1970s, Morton’s work also looked to a pioneering use of personal narrative, intimacy, humor, and poetic imagination. Yet the scope of her artistic production remains largely unrecognized, as does her vital contribution to feminist art practice and the importance of drawing to her development as an artist. The exhibition is comprised of a selection of early drawings, several of which will be on view for the first time, along with major drawing-based sculptural works and a selection of notebook sketches. Ree Morton: At the Still Point of the Turning World is curated by João Ribas, taking its title from a T. S. Eliot poem Morton kept above her studio desk.

 

Image: Ree Morton, Pink Numbers, 8 1/2 x 11 inches, mixed media on paper, 1971. Courtesy Alexander and Bonin, New York. Photo: Bill Orcutt