A groundbreaking exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is challenging the traditional narrative of Abstract Expressionism by showcasing the work of Ojibwe artist George Morrison and highlighting Native American contributions to American modernism. "The Magical City: George Morrison's New York," running until May 31, 2026, presents 25 works that explore the complex relationship between Native art and the Abstract Expressionist movement that dominated post-war American culture.
The exhibition raises fundamental questions about the origins and influences of American modernism. While Abstract Expressionism is typically characterized as the story of white men creating revolutionary art in New York City, Morrison's work suggests a different narrative. The geometric patterns, color restraint, and spatial rhythms found in ancient Native American pictographs from Tecolote Cave (dating to 7300 BC) and 19th-century Sioux ceremonial objects show striking similarities to celebrated works by Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, suggesting that American modernism owes a significant debt to Native artistic traditions.
George Morrison (1919-2000) embodied the tension between urban and reservation life that many Native Americans experienced. Born into poverty on the Grand Portage Chippewa reservation on Lake Superior, Morrison moved to New York City in 1943 after surviving cultural obliteration, forced hair cutting at Indian boarding schools, and tuberculosis. His work reflects this duality through what curator Patricia Marroquin Norby describes as "sumptuous irony" – lush, warm colors that idealize both landscapes and urban scenes while exposing the harsh realities of displacement, prejudice, and survival.
The artist's painting titles reveal this complex relationship between the hostile and the beautiful. Works like "The Antagonist" (1956) contrast sharply with pieces such as "Autumn Dusk, Red Rock Variation: Lake Superior Landscape" (1986), gesturing between urban bigotry and bucolic homeland memories. In "Aureate Vertical" (1958), Morrison depicts golden glass skyscrapers with a blindingly idyllic gleam, yet the painting suggests how city streets can overwhelm viewers as quickly as the turbulent waters shown in "Morning Storm, Red Rock Variation: Lake Superior Landscape" (1986).
Morrison was part of the celebrated cohort of Abstract Expressionists but faced different challenges due to his race and background. He formed close relationships with prominent artists including Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Lois Dodd, and Louise Nevelson. However, unlike his white male contemporaries who were mythologized as tortured geniuses, Morrison's struggles with mental health – stemming from childhood trauma and Indian boarding school experiences – were not romanticized or publicized. The Victorian notion of pathologizing women and people of color still influenced how different artists' personal struggles were perceived and marketed.
Morrison's artistic evolution from representation to abstraction can be traced through key works in the exhibition. "Three Figures" (1945) uses saturated red and blue figures against a dark background to depict a volatile love triangle he experienced while studying at the Art Students League in New York. His shift toward gesture-based abstraction is evident in "Dream of Calamity" (1945), a watercolor-and-ink response to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that features a distressed web of lines and smoky, muted colors swirling over Japanese homes.
The artist's work immediately gained recognition in New York's competitive art scene. Willem de Kooning was so impressed by Morrison's work in a 1945 group show that he reportedly fell uncharacteristically silent. Within his first five years in the city, Morrison's paintings traveled to prestigious institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia.
Morrison found healing through artistic transformation, particularly in his treatment of place and landscape. "Structural Landscape (Highway)" (1952) exemplifies this approach by transforming the West Side Elevated Line (now the High Line) into neutral geometry adjacent to a lush New Jersey waterfront, with no river separating them. The painting offers viewers familiar landmarks like the West Side and Holland Tunnel while employing spatial strategies that make the distant Garden State appear intimate and accessible.
The exhibition argues that Morrison's work possesses a depth and authenticity that contrasts sharply with some of his more famous contemporaries. While artists like Pollock, Barnett Newman, and Peter Busa borrowed gestures and techniques from Native sources that Morrison naturally drew upon, their works often produced what critics now recognize as superficial imitations. This cultural appropriation reflected a broader spiritual disconnection in non-Native America that the exhibition suggests continues today.
Morrison's technique combined classical training with mathematical precision in his move toward abstraction. His landscapes span from New York City to Chippewa territory, creating clear visual and philosophical connections between organic and engineered horizons. The artist recognized that even metropolitan materials like the steel and glass of the Empire State Building ultimately originated in nature, allowing him to bridge urban and natural worlds in his compositions.
Despite Morrison's significant contributions and the current exhibition, Native American art continues to face institutional marginalization. The placement of "The Magical City" in the Met's American Wing, adjacent to but separate from the museum's Native American collection rather than alongside Morrison's white contemporaries, highlights ongoing challenges. This positioning perpetuates what critics call a persistent fiction – that contemporary Native art belongs to historical rather than current artistic discourse.
The exhibition represents both progress and ongoing institutional challenges in recognizing Native American contributions to American modernism. While Morrison's work is finally receiving major museum attention, the struggle for full recognition of Native arts' influence on the modernist canon continues. The show serves as both celebration of Morrison's achievement and a reminder of how much work remains in properly crediting Native American artists' foundational role in shaping American art.
