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Fish Assuming the Form of Consciousness
Fish Assuming the Form of Consciousness

Fish Assuming the Form of Consciousness

Artist (American, 1910–2001)
Date1955
MediumGouache on paper
Dimensions6 1/8 x 10 7/8 inches (15.6 x 27.6 cm)
ClassificationsPaintings
Credit LineDr. and Mrs. Milton Lurie Kramer Collection; Bequest of Helen Kroll Kramer
Terms
  • Paintings
  • Gouache
  • Animals
  • Bodies of water
  • Fantasy
  • Fish
  • Mythological creatures
  • Ponds
  • Paper
Object number77.062.013
Label CopyGraves’s work, like Mark Tobey’s, was greatly influenced by Eastern spiritualism, aestheticism, and philosophy. After dropping out of high school, he traveled with his brother as a steamship hand for the American Mail Line, which stopped at every major point in Asia. His response to Japan was immediate and electric: “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.” Graves, as a conscientious objector, spent eleven months in prison during World War II. In 1945 he was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship to go to Japan but was prevented from entering the country by postwar restrictions. (“JapanAmerica: Points of Contact, 1876–1970," curated by Nancy E. Green and presented at the Johnson Museum August 27–December 18, 2016)