MORRIS LOUIS | Sidle

Park International, New York
Lawrence Rubin Gallery, New York
Galerie Schmela, Dusseldorf
Fänn and Willy Schniewind Collection, Neviges (acquired from the above in 1963)
Thence by descent to the present owner

Dusseldorf, Galerie Schmela, Morris Louis, April - May 1962 
Wuppertal, Kunst-und Museumsverein Wuppertal, Kunst der Gegenwart in Wuppertaler Privatbesitz, March - April 1965, n.p., no. 74 (text)
Dusseldorf, Städtische Kunsthalle; and Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Morris Louis, June 1974 - April 1975, n.p., no. 33 (text)

Diane Upright, Morris Louis: The Complete Paintings: A Catalogue Raisonné, New York 1985, p. 174, no. 456, illustrated in colour

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality of the background is warmer, and the tonality of the stripes slightly brighter in the original. Condition: Please refer to the department for a professional condition report.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Executed in 1962, Morris Louis’s Sidle is charged with a vibrant and optic allure. Bands of colour cascade down the canvas in vertical stripes which appear to pulsate with energy. Each hue seems to converse and collide in a powerful celebration of colour as both subject and medium. Sidle belongs to Louis’s series of Stripe paintings, a prolific body of work which he produced from early 1961, immediately after his Unfurled series, right up to his untimely death in 1962. The Stripe paintings are widely considered to represent the culmination of the artist’s intense preoccupation with the individual characteristics of paint and his desire to elevate colour as an individual force unto itself. Indeed, testament to its great importance within Louis’s oeuvre, a number of Stripe paintings reside in major museum collections including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Palm Springs Art Museum, California; and the Flint Institute of Arts, Michigan, to name a few. As the present composition supremely demonstrates, each band of colour exists as an autonomous entity, bleeding into the fibres of the canvas and becoming one with it. Meticulously ordered, the colour palette of Louis’s Stripe paintings is highly complex, selected so that each coloured band engages a tonal push-pull between primary, secondary, and tertiary hues. In Sidle, the primary pillars of red, yellow and blue are offset by secondary tones of forest green and cadmium orange. Intensifying the palette further still, Louis’s colour combinations create almost indescribable tertiary tones of more muted – yet all the more interesting – offshoots of amber, ochre and olive. The effect of such amalgamated tones is that their brilliancy is not hindered by the deep inky black stripe which starts the run of colour to the left of the canvas, but rather is enhanced as a result of this visual weight.

Louis began teaching at the Washington Workshop Center of the Arts in 1952, and here became close friends with fellow instructor and painter, Kenneth Noland. Noland and Louis bonded over a shared enthusiasm for the work of artists including Jackson Pollock and Robert Motherwell and, in April 1953, they visited New York for a weekend trip that would profoundly impact the future trajectory of both their careers. While in New York, Noland introduced Louis to Clement Greenberg, the foremost art critic and essayist of their time. Together, the trio visited a number of galleries and artists’ studios most notably including Helen Frankenthaler’s. This particular visit in 1953 was a transformative experience for Louis and his exposure to Frankenthaler’s staining techniques opened up a realm of new possibilities for the artist. Upon witnessing Frankenthaler’s innovative method of pouring pigment over a flat, unstretched canvas, Louis declared her work as “a bridge between Pollock and what was possible” (Morris Louis cited in: Exh. Cat., New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Morris Louis, 1986, p. 13). For Louis, this realm of possibility meant an absolute abandonment of gestural representation. By soaking the canvas with paint, rather than painting onto its surface, the paint and the canvas became one.

As its title infers, the bands of paint in the present composition seem to slink and sidle down the length of the canvas in accordance with Louis’s technique. Seeking to maintain an even sense of saturated colour throughout the vertical length of each stripe, Louis created the works in this series by carefully pouring a thin ribbon of paint down the surface of the canvas, before employing a long painting stick wrapped with cheesecloth to spread the paint to its desired width, carefully nestling each colour up against its neighbouring stripe. This restrained control and evenness was a direct result of advancements in the chemical makeup of Louis’s paint formula. Illuminated by a valiant energy, Sidle consummates Louis’s most esteemed body of work and endures as a shimmering apotheosis of the artist’s creative genius.