Morris Graves: Flowers For Thought -- Show Celebrates Everyday Beauty

----------------------------------------------------------------- Art review

"Morris Graves: Flower Paintings," at the Seattle Art Museum through Aug. 4; 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays, until 9 p.m. Thursdays; $6 adults, $4 students and seniors. -----------------------------------------------------------------

Morris Graves is a mythical figure in Northwest art history. He and the late Mark Tobey are the two best-known and most acclaimed of the so-called "Northwest mystic painters," a group of highly creative and innovative artists who came of age professionally in the 1930s, '40s and '50s. Influenced by Asian philosophies, they combined Western modernism with Asian spiritualism and metaphysics; none of the group was more adept at this than Morris.

At 85, Morris is living, as he has for many decades, on property he owns in Northern California. A legendary recluse, he almost never makes public appearances.

But a new show at SAM sheds some light on what he is doing these days. Organized by SAM's Vicki Halper, associate curator of modern art, the lovely show of 18 paintings includes works from 1945 through 1995. Halper organized the show partly as a tribute to Graves to celebrate the 85th year of his prolific life. But another motivation, she said, was last year's publication of a book of Graves' flower paintings. The hardcover book, "Morris Graves: Flower Paintings" (University of Washington Press, $39.95), contains 57

color plates and is a joy to look at. It also has an excellent, succinct essay on Graves by Theodore F. Wolff, former art critic for the Christian Science Monitor.

Flower power

In his essay, Wolff notes that flower paintings are often denigrated by art sophisticates as trivial and overly sentimental. Yet he notes that several champions of abstract art and modernism, including Piet Mondrian and Graves, have created flower paintings that soar above the Hallmark-card aesthetic often associated with such paintings.

Morris will always be known for his interest in mysticism, and for depicting the "inner-eye" and the process of spiritual enlightenment. Yet in the '70s, Wolff writes, Morris turned to flower painting precisely because of pure aesthetics. Morris started using more color and painted exterior beauty rather than interior motivations.

Wolff quotes Morris defending his flower paintings in 1980: "I have stopped trying to say anything about anything - there is no statement or message other than the presence of the flowers and light - that is enough." Despite such expressed interest in surface beauty, Graves can't get away from the spiritual dimension. The works in the show are quiet, serene, radiant, evanescent.

Though there is color, it is precisely measured out - a clump of lavender buds or an orange day lily against a somber background. The modest gracefulness of these paintings inspires meditation.

Begonias' chance to shine

There are no glamour-queen roses here, no blowzy dahlias. Graves' flowers are often small begonia buds or strawberry flowers. Even when the compositions become larger and more complex, as they do in many of the later paintings of the '80s, the flowers still celebrate the beauty of the ordinary and the everyday. These are not hothouse exotics. Graves paints geraniums, begonias and poppies and turns each into a small, perfect poem.

The works in the show come from SAM's collection, from Graves' collection, from the Schmidt-Bingham Gallery in New York, and from Marshall and Helen Hatch, longtime Seattle collectors and Graves' patrons. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Free lecture at SAM

Theodore F. Wolff, author of "Morris Graves: The Flower Paintings," will give a lecture on Graves' flower imagery at 7 p.m. May 14 at the downtown Seattle Art Museum. The free lecture is sponsored by Marshall Hatch, a local collector of Graves' work, in memory of Hatch's wife, Helen.