Beth Aleph

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The composition is made up of vertical, curving, overlapping stripes in bright colors. The colors are randomly placed about, including blue, red, yellow, green, orange, and beige.

Artist Morris Louis (American, 1912–1962)

Title Beth Aleph

Date 1960

Medium Acrylic on canvas

Dimensions Overall: 95 3/8 x 140 3/8 in. (242.3 x 356.6 cm)

Credit Line Jane and Roger Wolcott Memorial, Gift of Thomas T. Solley, Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University

Accession Number 75.46

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About this Work

Morris Louis was a member of the Washington, D.C.-based group of artists known as the Washington Color School. These artists treated color itself as the subject of painting. Louis is known for his luminously colored, abstract, poured paintings, which he created using a technique he learned from Helen Frankenthaler: he poured thinned washes of acrylic paint onto unprimed cotton canvas, so the paint would soak deeply into the weave of the canvas, and blend slightly with the other colors. Louis tended to work in series. Beth Aleph is from his Veils series, characterized by semi-transparent bands of color that recall gauzy veils of sheer fabric

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"Beth Aleph | Collections Online." Collections Online. Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University, 2024. https://artmuseum.indiana.edu/collections-online/browse/object.php?number=75.46