Morris Graves - Early Years

Early Years

Born the sixth son of a Methodist family in Fox Valley, Oregon, his family moved to Seattle in 1911. He was a self-taught artist with natural understandings of color and line.

Graves dropped out of high school after his sophomore year and sailed on three American Mail Line ships with his brother Russell. Upon arriving in Japan, he wrote:

"There, I at once had the feeling that this was the right way to do everything. It was the acceptance of nature not the resistance to it. I had no sense that I was to be a painter, but I breathed a different air."