Keith Morrison

By Renée Ater. Smyth-sewn casebound with jacket, 8 1/2 x 11 in., 128 pp. More than 70 color and black-and-white reproductions and photographs Text: English Keith Morrison (1942) has been painting for more than four decades. His works are in the collections of such prestigious institutions as the Cincinnati Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the World Bank, and the National Museum of American Art. He is also a writer, an art critic, a curator, and an academician: presently he is Dean, College of Creative Arts, San Francisco State University. Morrison's work include both abstraction and figuration. Jamaican born, Morrison was exposed to traditional art at home. In the US, at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, he studied figure drawing, painting, and printmaking, basing his style of abstraction on geometric forms, music, and geography. Subsequently influenced by political events, emotionally charged situations, and cross-cultural sources, he then turned to figurative art. His works are carefully planned, exhibiting a mastery of linear and aerial perspective; he presents a narrative, embellishing it with symbolism and history conveyed through articulate detail. He is truly 'a painterly storyteller'.