Decoding Morris Louis

Morris Louis is a mystery to me. He made 500+ giant paintings, up to 23 feet wide, in a 12x14-foot suburban dining room. He kept his process a secret, even from his supportive wife Marcella. I and other painters have wondered at how these amazing works were made, as many who paint know how hard it is to make a painting that looks easy to create.

When I saw Marcel Rozek's paintings, I felt that he too wanted to understand Morris Louis, and could see his great desire to move forward in this line of painting. Just like in music, this desire holds true in painting. I see something special in Marcel's work, besides the inspiration from Louis. Marcel is able to capture and broadcast a unique feeling through color and composition, unlike many who try.

I reached out to Marcel and have had many conversations trying to solve the mystery of Louis's painting. It's well known that Kenneth Noland and Morris Louis were inspired by a visit to Helen Frankenthaler's studio, after which they worked in the same studio together, attempting to understand something they both loved about painting. We wanted to do much of the same. I ordered a giant roll of canvas and invited Marcel to my studio, so we could paint together in appreciation of an artist who has given us such great inspiration.

Here are two paintings that we made together, one in the style of Louis's "Florals" painted on my rotating easel, and the other in the style most difficult to figure out, that of the "Unfurled” paintings, of which Louis exhibited and titled only two of nearly 150 during his lifetime. After many experiments, we successfully found a system that Morris might have managed!

However, after making similar paintings at nearly half the size, questions remain. How could one person physically make and store so many enormous paintings in a dining room and basement? Did the house reek of solvent? Morris’s wife, Marcella Louis Brenner, said that the paintings were dried and rolled before she returned home from work. She never noticed any paint spills on his clothes.