Presenting The Sexual Essence Of Morris Graves

at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, NYC (through August 2)
Reviewed by Phoebe Hoban

Morris Graves is an eloquently quiet artist. And yet the subtle chords he strikes in his delicate, musical compositions have a remarkably powerful resonance, a feeling of total “rightness” that certain artists can achieve, often with the least apparent drama.

Graves, a mostly self-taught, transcendental painter, created works that stand as painted haikus. An avid gardener, many of his paintings are of birds and flowers. His 2001 obituary recalled the artist, in his youth, “rushing here or there with flowers or canvas in hand.” “There is,” as he once put it, “no statement or message other than the presence of flowers and light.”

Yet it is his finely rendered vessels, rather than single blossoms or bouquets, that firmly tether his paintings, thus engendering the name of this exquisite show, Calix, Cup, Chalice, Grail, Urn, Goblet: Presenting the Sexual Essence of Morris Graves. The title is taken from a poetic letter Graves wrote in the 1980s: “Calix cup, Chalice, Grail, Urn, Goblet, superbly presenting the sexual essence, the reproductive-mystery elements, the seed cup. The flower. The Cup (chalice) to quaff the life-flow- the cup that invites and summons the bees and moths to savor, quaff and carry the pollen.”

Graves’ love affair with nature dates back to his childhood, when a bout with pneumonia confined him to the family garden. He dropped out of high…