THE world of the Pacific Northwest's mystic Morris Graves is seen in low-keyed colors: dark browns, misty greys, the glint of surf. Done with techniques heavily influenced by the Orient, his work reveals a world of nature, ranging from joyous pines to blind and wounded birds, that is at once familiar and yet hauntingly mysterious. His current retrospective exhibition of 94 paintings and drawings at Manhattan's Whitney Museum shows what an increasing number of collectors and critics have come to realize: Painter Graves at 45 has developed one of the most successful, personalized idioms in U.S. painting today.
Of his own work,...
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