Connecting MCAD History | Minneapolis College of Art and Design

Connecting MCAD History

January 01, 2024
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Kyle Morris 1959
Kyle Morris

In 1886, the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts (now Minneapolis Institute of Arts) establishes the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts (now Minneapolis College of Art and Design). It wasn’t until over one-hundred years later, in 1988, that the two organizations became autonomous.

Kyle Morris (1918-1979) was a painter in the Minneapolis art scene in the mid 1900s. Morris showed work at the Walker Art Center, and Minneapolis Institute of Arts, as well as taught painting at the University of Minnesota. It is likely that Kyle Morris and George Morrison ‘43 were in the same circle of artists, as both show historical ties with the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts and the New York School of abstract expressionists. In the ’40s and early ’50s, Morris was primarily teaching and exhibiting in the Minneapolis area, and later would primarily exhibit in New York– similar to George Morrison ‘43.

Morris' 1959 oil painting Untitled (seen above) is now housed in the permanent collection at MCAD.


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Kyle Morris

MCAD History