Delta Kappa

Morris Louis

1960

Acrylic on canvas

Dallas Museum of Art

"Delta Kappa" exemplifies work created by Morris Louis in the last years of his short life, when he used the pure color of paint and the emptiness of the uncluttered canvas in tandem to create expansive fields of meditative beauty. During 1960-61, the artist completed a series of nearly 140 paintings, of which this is one. They are often referred to as "Unfurleds," for the manner in which the bands of paint on the canvas seem to unfurl like a sheet blowing in the wind. Louis used thinned-out acrylic paint, which he poured onto unprimed canvas; though he controlled this action and guided the rivulets of paint, chance necessarily play