Written by DCist Contributor Amy Cavenaugh

Baltimore-bred artist Morris Louis, who lived in Washington in the 1950s, is the subject of a 28-work retrospective on display at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden through January 6. Morris Louis Now: An American Master Revisited, curated by Jeffrey Grove of the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, is the first such consideration of Louis’ work in two decades — the previous retrospective was also at the Hirshhorn, which has five Louis paintings in its permanent collection.

Louis was an incredibly prolific artist, producing 600 compositions in the five years before his death in 1962. His works build upon the staining technique developed by New York painter Helen Frankenthaler, who poured thinned paints onto an unprimed canvas so the surface absorbed the color. Louis altered this technique by manipulating the canvas and paint in order to attain a flow of color across the surface in different directions.

Morris Louis Now charts the progression of this method, and the paintings are grouped according to the four significant periods of Louis’ work. “Veils” (1954, 1958-59) consist of overlapping colors, “Florals” (1959-60) feature a dense center of color, “Unfurleds” (1960-61) have paint poured from the edges so they flow inward, while most of the canvas remains white, and “Stripes” (1961-62) feature lines of color. Point of Tranquility (pictured above), from the permanent collection, belongs to the “Florals” series, and was created by pouring paint from all four sides, so the color appears to bloom outward, like an opening flower.

Para III, (pictured left) is one of the exhibition highlights because it is not a quintessential Louis creation. The painting features vibrant bands of color that bleed into each other and seem to dance across the canvas — it’s a far more energetic piece than we’re typically used to with Louis, and it allows us to see how his techniques changed over time.

Though not affiliated with a school during his life, since his death Louis has become linked to the Washington Color School, a loose group of artists who worked primarily in the decade following Louis’ death to produce canvases that adopted his color staining techniques. Morris Louis Now recognizes his wide-reaching influence, and pulls paintings by Color Field artists Frankenthaler, Kenneth Noland and Jules Olitski out of the permanent collection to offer a counterpoint for considering Louis’ artistic techniques.

The exhibit’s final room details how conservationists have been restoring poured-paint canvases, and as an often-overlooked part of the museum-world, this is a worthy reminder that the paintings we admire on gallery walls rarely look that way when they first reach museums. Color Field pieces present unique preservation challenges, since unprimed canvases are susceptible to noticeable stains and marks, resulting in discolorations and inaccurate representations of how the artist intended his work to appear. In order to help restore their Color paintings, the Hirshhorn joined with conservators and conservation scientists at the Getty Conservation Institute, the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the Tate Modern in London to help develop safe and effective treatments for these works.

The Hirshhorn is open daily 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and is located at Independence Ave. and 7th St., SW. Images courtesy the museum web site.