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Hibernation

Object Details

Exhibition Label
Morris Graves was profiled in Life magazine in 1954, the year he painted Hibernation, as one of four mystical painters of the Pacific Northwest. Graves had studied Zen Buddhism in the early 1930s and for much of his life drew on East Asian philosophies as a way to understand man’s relationship with the world of nature. In Hibernation, a mink curls up within glowing concentric orbs that resemble mandalas, the form that represents the universe and the sacred spaces of the Hindu and Buddhist religions.
Modern American Realism: The Sara Roby Foundation Collection, 2014
Graves combined nature with Asian philosophy in Hibernation. This painting depicts an adult mink resting in a fetal position. It is surrounded by a glowing egg, or “Yoga mandala,” which, according to Graves, “blooms” as a result of the mink’s “intense isolation.” Hibernation manifests the artist’s displeasure with the industrial world and his appreciation for rural solitude and the spellbinding quiet of nature.
Graphic Masters II: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2009
Data Source
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Artist
Morris Graves, born Fox Valley, OR 1910-died Loleta, CA 2001
Date
1954
Credit Line
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Sara Roby Foundation
Medium
watercolor on paper mounted on paper
Dimensions
sheet: 18 1/4 x 26 3/8 in. (46.2 x 66.9 cm)
Type
Drawing

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