Geer Morton

Geer Morton

Geer Morton is one of the few truly original artists I have ever met.

To experience a Morton painting is to experience the artist's joy and gratitude in living. In many ways, the paintings he composes are small slices of himself that he gives away as gifts. The subject matter he chooses to paint is familiar, that of artists for a thousand years-landscapes, still lifes, windows with flower pots, boat harbors, houses, empty streets-and yet, Morton manages to compel us into seeing these things in a completely different way. His subjects are simple things that, without our knowing it (or perhaps we do know, and forget) mean everything to us, simply because they are the simple things. The Indian poet, Sufi, once said, "When we see a thing of beauty, we know it as truth."

In the beginning, as children, we see these things with a miraculous awe, then we forget. Morton reminds us.

Born in Maine in 1935, Morton began painting as child, running home to his paints after school. He has painted every day for nearly forty years. As a young man, he gravitated to California and immersed himself in an art movement now known as the "San Francisco School" made famous by artists Wayne Thiebaud and Richard Diebenkorn (under whom Morton studied at the prestigious San Francisco Art Institute). The movement was characterized by colorful, broad brushed, semi-abstract studies of everyday scenes, using a flattened perspective. His work is still very much in keeping with that style.

Morton's biography and list of credentials reads like a novel. During nearly forty years, the whim of critics and the "art market" has waffled-drifted from right to left to right again, from abstract to representational-and still Morton continues to paint his paintings in the same way, on his own terms. He is celebrated as a genius one year, and a struggling artist in the next. Despite that, he has remained a successful working artist all these years because his paintings touch us at some root level. And he is constantly in search of ways to make his work better. "I need to enrich the experience of painting." Morton says, "to find a deeper intimacy with the work, a delicacy and elegance, not just ruthless sensuality." In a world where we are overblown by technology, overwhelmed with instant communication, Morton's work invites us to get down on our knees and smell the daffodils. He works in acrylics, using large brushes on paper and canvas and quite often paints outside, "au plein aire" in the tradition of the great Impressionists. He has two studios, one on the west coast of California, one in Maine, painting half the year in each. He travels with his van, casually but pointedly looking for a scene that speaks to him-perhaps a lonely weathered house, perched on some sunset-drenched, seaside promontory. He backs up to the cliff, opens the rear doors and begins to paint, quickly and feverishly, racing against the sun to capture the magic of the moment before he is cloaked in darkness. "I often get my best stuff while working late in the day and under the gun, under limited conditions," he says, "there's no time for the niceties, no time for the adjustments, no time for listening to the critic in mex(I just say) to hell with everything. And quite often it's a good paintingx"
This classical, have-to-be-right-there approach to painting is what produces Morton's wonderfully nostalgic landscapes and "still portraits." His style is fluid, sweeping, gestural with a heavy impasto technique which unabashedly leaves evidence of the presence of the artist. He does not paint in a strictly representative style. There are cameras for that. What Morton does is emulate the emotional impact of the scene in visual terms and gently impales it into our hearts, like Cupid's Arrow. Many Morton paintings are so good at it, that we swear we recognize the scene, swear we've been there-but really, what we experience is a kind of deja vu, a familiarity with the composition that is born from a kind of sensory montage, a compilation of pleasant memories that makes us want to return there, wherever there is.

Geer Morton is truly a free spirit. He paints every day as though it was his first and last, with an enthusiasm for his art that is at the same time both childlike and mature.
In addition to his very lengthy listing of awards, museums, corporate collections and gallery exhibitions spanning four decades (a very small percentage of which appear below), he was also a Chairman of the Design Department as well as an Instructor of Drawing and Painting at the San Francisco Art Institute. Geer Morton's talents and wide appeal have certainly been corroborated. Yet he goes quietly on, year after year, creating paintings that speak to us of harmony and grace, giving the viewer a moment's respite from our everchanging and oftentimes intimidating world.

A Partial Listing of Credentials
Solo Exhibitions:
Matmurango Museum,
Ridgecrest, CA
Young Gallery, Los Gatos, CA
Twining Gallery, New York City
Gallery House, Nobelboro, ME
Dubin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Charles Campbell Gallery,
San Francisco, CA
Gumps Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Bechtel Intl. Gallery,
Stanford Univ., Palo Alto, CA
Group Shows:
Crocker Museum of Art,
Sacramento, CA
San Diego Art Institute,
San Diego, CA
Visual Arts Center of NW Florida, Panama City, FL
New England Watercolor Society, Boston, MA
California Museum of Art,
Santa Rosa, CA
Academy of the Arts,
Easton, MD
National Society of Painters in Casein & Acrylic, NY, NY
The Hoyt Institute of Fine Arts, Newcastle, PA
Southwest Texas State University, San Marcos, TX
Tortue Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
San Franciso Art Institute
Faculty Show
Awards and Commissions:
Memorial Award - New England Watercolor Society, Boston,MA
H.G. Daniels Award
San Diego Art Institute
Award of Merit-San Francisco Arts Commission Festival
Golden Seal Award
San Francisco Art Institute
Reviews:
Jacqueline Hall,
Columbus Dispatch, 1994
Gallery Guide, NY, 1994
Leah Ollman,
Los Angeles Times, 1989, 1988,
Kenneth Baker,
San Francisco Chronicle, 1987
Robert Pincus,
The San Diego Union, 1988
Thomas Albright, San Francisco Chronicle, 1974, 1978, 1962
Publications:
California Art Review, "An Illustrated Survey of the State's Museums, Galleries and Leading Artists"
Linda C. Puig, feature story,
Los Angeles Times, 1989
Art In America, "Annual Guide to Galleries, Museums and Artists." 1985,1984,1983
Caroline Drews, feature story,
San Francisco Examiner, 1981
Corporate and Private Collections:
Bank of America, San Francisco, CA
Gulf Oil, Houston, TX
Crocker Bank, San Francisco, CA
Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher,
San Diego, CA
Nynex, New York, NY
Aircoa Corp., Denver, CO
Judy Collins, New York
Senator Barry Keene,
Sacramento, CA