About the Object
This work and A Synchromy (VF2015.05.12) illustrate the evolution of Morgan Russell’s style as well as his sources. Michelangelo’s Dying Slave, 1513–16 (Louvre Museum) inspired the S-curve visible in both works. Here the curve is a soft rainbow of color, sections of red, orange, yellow, green, and blue set against less-defined and somewhat cooler clouds of color.
Additional Information
Morgan Russell and Stanton Macdonald-Wright founded Synchromism (which means “with color”), a movement in which color becomes an independent expressive and formal element, in 1912 and held their first exhibitions in Munich and Paris the following year.
The Artist;
Estate of the Artist;
Louis Sol, Aigremont, France;
Benjamin F. Garber with William C. Agee acting as agent;
Henry M. Reed, Caldwell, NJ;
[Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, NM];
Private Collection, Dallas, TX;
[The Owings Gallery, Santa Fe, NM];
Jan T. and Marica Vilcek Collection, New York, NY, 2010-2015;
New York, NY. Museum of Modern Art. Morgan Russell: Synchromist Studies 1910-1922. March 16-May 25, 1976, installation photographs.
New York, NY. Whitney Museum of American Art. Synchromism and American Color Abstraction, 1910-25 (January 24-March, 26, 1978); Houston, TX. The Museum of Fine Arts (April 20-June 18, 1978); Des Moines, IA. Des Moines Art Center (July 6-September 3, 1978); San Francisco, CA. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (September 22-November 19, 1978); Syracuse, NY. Everson Museum of Art (December 15, 1978-January 28, 1979); Columbus, OH. Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts (February 15-March 24, 1979); pp. 23, 142, ill. np., pl. 70.
Montclair, NJ. Montclair Art Museum. Morgan Russell: The Origins of a Modern Masterpiece (January 25, 1998-April 26, 1998); Philadelphia, PA. The Museum of American Art of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (June 12, 1998-August 23); Huntington, NY. Heckscher Museum of Art (September 5, 1998-November 15, 1998); pp. 7, 81, 206, ill. p. 81, pl. 57, cat. no. 36.
New York, NY. Hollis Taggart Galleries. Synchromism: Morgan Russell and Stanton Macdonald-Wright. May 1-28, 1999, pp. 10, 12, 24, ill. front cover and p. 12, pl. 5, cat. no. 5.
New York, NY. The Vilcek Foundation. With Color. May 16, 2013.
Corpus Christi, TX. The Art Museum of South Texas. Masterpieces of American Modernism from the Vilcek Collection of American Art. September 13, 2018-January 6, 2019.
New York, NY. The Vilcek Foundation. The Synchromists, 2020-2021.
Madrid, Spain. Thyssen-Bornemisza Museo Nacional. The Synchromists. June 27-November 1, 2022.
Agee, William C. and Lewis Kachur. Masterpieces of American Modernism: From the Vilcek Collection. London: Merrell, 2013, pp. 132-133, 134, 242, 267, ill. pp. 133, 242, fig. 27.
Robertson, Bruce. “American Modernism and Dance: Arthur B. Davies’s Dances, 1915,” in Dance! American Art: 1830-1960, Jane Dini, ed. Yale University Press, 2016, p. 122, ill. p. 122, fig. 4.
Dorfman, John. “Over the Rainbow,” Art & Antiques, November 2020, ill. p. 48.
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