Skip to main content
Beta Mu
Artist
Morris Louis
(Born 1912, United States; died 1962, United States)
Date1960
MediumAcrylic resin (Magna) on canvas
DimensionsUnframed: 102 x 170 1/8 x 1 1/2 in. (259.08 x 432.12 x 3.81 cm)
Framed: 103 1/4 x 171 3/4 x 1 3/4 in. (262.26 x 436.25 x 4.45 cm)
Framed: 103 1/4 x 171 3/4 x 1 3/4 in. (262.26 x 436.25 x 4.45 cm)
Credit LineCollection of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Museum purchase, The Benjamin J. Tillar Memorial Trust
Object number1980.6
Status
Not on viewSignedverso u.l.c. in pencil "Louis #374"
Copyright© 2020 Morris Louis / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Category
Label TextMorris Louis is best known for his “stain” paintings, which he made by pouring a mixture of paint and turpentine directly onto unsized and unstretched canvases that he would then tilt and manipulate to create abstract shapes and fields of color. From 1954 to 1959, he used the stain method to create his Veil series, which marked the beginning of his mature style.
Louis continued his investigations of pure color and space in his late Unfurled series of 1960. Instead of creating large floods of color, he poured thin streams of vibrant color diagonally across a canvas from both sides to the bottom edge. The Modern’s large-scale painting Beta Mu, 1960, exemplifies this style, with its bright soaked stripes of green, yellow, blue, red, orange, pink, and brown flanking a large, central V-shaped expanse of completely bare canvas.
Louis continued his investigations of pure color and space in his late Unfurled series of 1960. Instead of creating large floods of color, he poured thin streams of vibrant color diagonally across a canvas from both sides to the bottom edge. The Modern’s large-scale painting Beta Mu, 1960, exemplifies this style, with its bright soaked stripes of green, yellow, blue, red, orange, pink, and brown flanking a large, central V-shaped expanse of completely bare canvas.