Louis made Russet by pouring thinned acrylic paintdown a tilted unprimed canvas, allowing gravity, rather than a paintbrush, to dictate its flow and contours. The two dark vertical lines in the painting indicate where he folded the loose canvas to guide the paint in sections. Along the top of the canvas, the vibrant individual colors he used reveal themselves in the edges of this otherwise muted, ethereal painting. The work belongs to a series of breakthrough paintings the artist made between 1954 and 1958, known as Veils because of the translucent layers and billowing shapes of their aqueous pools of color. The title of this work refers to the overall reddish-brown tone of the paint and, like many of Louis's titles, was assigned to the work by Clement Greenberg, an influential American art critic and a close friend of the artist.

Gallery label from

2009.

Medium Synthetic polymer paint on canvas
Dimensions 7' 8 3/4" x 14' 5 5/8" (235.6 x 441.1 cm)
Credit Given anonymously
Object number 214.1977
Department Painting & Sculpture

Explore more

All works by Morris Louis →

From MoMA Design Store

Installation views

We have identified this work in the following photos from our exhibition history.

How we identified these works
In 2018–19, MoMA collaborated with Google Arts & Culture Lab on a project using machine learning to identify artworks in installation photos. That project has concluded, and works are now being identified by MoMA staff.

If you notice an error, please contact us at [email protected].
Licensing
To reproduce installation views, please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations). You will need to include the object identification number found in the caption.
Feedback
This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please send feedback to [email protected].

Licensing

Artwork or archival images

If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA's collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).

Audio and film clips

MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit Circulating Film and Video Library.

Text from a publication or the archives

If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA's archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].

Feedback

This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please fill out this feedback form.