Beta Beta

Flanked by flowing streams of brilliant color, Morris Louis’s Beta Beta is a rapturous example of his series known collectively as the Unfurleds. Considered by the artist to be his greatest and most ambitious body of work, the Unfurleds (1960-61) are noteworthy for their colorful ribbons of paint that surround a vast area of empty canvas. In Beta Beta, a dozen of these colorful rivulets along the left and right edge stream downward in a beautiful array of jewel-toned colors. Painted in late 1960, Louis created the work by pouring acrylic resin directly onto the unprimed canvas and leaving the center completely bare. This monumental painting wholly engulfs its viewer in its lyricality and grace, making for a special viewing experience. This is made all the more significant considering the work has not been publicly exhibited in nearly twenty years, and has been in the same private collection since 1978.

The Unfurleds are recognized within Louis’s oeuvre as his most radical and ambitious series, with Diane Upright, the author of the artist’s catalogue raisonné, describing them as his “most audacious, innovative, pictorial statement” (D. Upright, Morris Louis: The Complete Paintings (A Catalogue Raisonné), New York, 1985, p. 21). The Unfurleds followed upon the success of the Veils (1954; 1958-9), and were painted before the Stripes (1961-62). As in Beta Beta, each of the Unfurleds were titled with Greek letters in the order in which they were stretched. Beta Beta was most likely created in late 1960, as the Unfurleds became increasingly larger and more complex, with an ever greater number of colors poured along each edge. Remarking upon this profound body of work, the preeminent curator John Elderfied praised them, writing: “these were the most radical, most extreme paintings to have been made since Pollock, Newman, and Still developed their characteristic styles. In many ways, these are more radical and extreme” (J. Elderfield, Morris Louis The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1986, p. 62).

“[The Unfurleds] were the most radical, most extreme paintings to have been made since Pollock, Newman, and Still developed their characteristic styles. In many ways, these are more radical and extreme.” - (J. Elderfield (ed.), Morris Louis, exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1986, p. 62).

In Beta Beta, colorful rivulets of liquified paint create a flowing curtain of color along the left and right edge of the painting. In this work, which is a particularly lush example of the Unfurleds, the variety of colors comprises the entire spectrum. Rich, saturated colors range from turquoise, green and blue to red, orange, purple, and yellow. Streaming down the canvas at an oblique angle, they branch off into flowing, organic rivers of paint. Louis has varied the placement of each colorful ribbon within each section, so that the colors on the left are slightly different than those on the right. Nevertheless, there is a wonderful sense of symmetry and balance to this majestic painting, with Louis’s innate instinct for color as its guiding force. The effect is of a giant tabula rasa where undulating streams of color flow inward on both sides, like life-giving waters rushing into a dry riverbed.

Following upon the critically-acclaimed series of Veil paintings of the latter 1950s, Louis began the Unfurleds in 1960. Turning away from the thickly impastoed surfaces of Abstract Expressionism, Louis instead veered toward airy, luminous paintings that allowed pure color to breathe and flow. He devised a method of thinning down acrylic paint with turpentine and other thinning agents, which he allowed to fully saturate into the very fibers of the canvas itself. Whereas the Veil paintings effectively saturated nearly the entire pictorial area with dark veils of paint, the Unfurleds retained more of the empty, untouched canvas and relegated the colorful veins of paint to the outer edges. In doing so, Louis created something entirely new. Critics praised his efforts, with the New York Times art critic Philip Lieder describing them as some of “the most beautiful paintings ever made in America,” in his review in 1967. He wrote, “The magnificent Unfurleds come forth as the great surprise…emerging as the supreme moment in Louis’s career. …one senses, from the earliest Veils through the inspired triumph of the Unfurleds, an extravagance of ambition that seeks nothing short of majesty” (P. Lieder, “You May Think You Appreciate Morris Louis, But Do You Really?” New York Times, February 26, 1967, p. D27).

Working in relative isolation in his modest studio in Washington, D.C., Morris Louis kept to himself, and famously never allowed anyone into his studio to watch him paint. Some of the largest of the Unfurleds were unable to fit inside the small dining room that he had converted into a studio, and thus had to be painted one half at a time. He often never saw his paintings stretched until they were exhibited. Nevertheless, Louis possessed an innate genius for both color and composition, and was relentless in his dogged search for the newest and latest acrylic paints. His luminous and colorful paintings have been compared to the French Impressionists, and his understanding of the intrinsic properties of individual colors – and their ability to advance or recede depending upon their placement – certainly rivals that of Henri Matisse. Louis was also inspired by J.M.W. Turner’s moody, atmospheric paintings, and Jackson Pollock’s “pour paintings.” Thus, Louis created a truly radical body of work in a short amount of time, with the Unfurleds hailed as among his most radical series.