Sarah Morris
Sarah Morris, born 1967 in Sevenoaks, UK, lives and works New York. The artist's work is concerned with decoding the built environment. Focusing on the urban experience, her works explores techniques of communication – the relationship between signs and symbols and their referents in the physical world. The 1997-99 Midtown series focused on the architecture of Manhattan skyscrapers as signifiers of urban life and corporate power. Architectural qualities became de-emphasized and fragmented into glossy, color saturated grid paintings. While the titles of Morris' works refer to the original buildings on which they are based, the images hover between representation and abstraction, between shimmering facades and composed color fields through a process of graphic reduction. Following the principles of single-point perspective, the sheer hard-edged vibrancy of the compositions and colors suggests cityscapes with looming planes of gigantic proportions.
Sarah Morris Editions
Paine Webber with Neons
1998/2009
Rockhopper (Origami)
2009
Rock Creek (Capital)
2002/2009
Taurus (Origami)
2009
Rings
2009
1972 (Rings)
2007
Endeavor (Los Angeles)
2006
William Morris (Los Angeles)
2005
Pools – Carillon (Miami)
2004
Color Referents (Miami)
2003
Paine Webber with Neons
1998/2009
Silkscreen on rag paper, 97 x 97 cm (38¼ x 38¼ in). Edition of 55, signed and numbered.
This edition refers to Sarah Morris’s 1998 painting of the same title. Seemingly abstract and reminiscent of Piet Mondrian, the work depicts a zoomed-in detail of the facade of former American stock brokerage and asset management firm Paine Webber in Manhattan, New York. It is part of her series titled Midtown, comprised of similar grid-like paintings featuring details of Midtown architecture. Driven by an interest in capitalist ideology, Sarah Morris examines how these gleaming corporate buildings in Midtown – an area marked by striking economic disparities in the 1990s – reflect ideas of wealth and power dynamics.
EUR 8,000
Rockhopper (Origami)
2009
Silkscreen on rag paper, 97 x 97 cm (38¼ x 38¼ in). Edition of 55, signed and numbered.
Sarah Morris’s Origami series is a collection of geometric paintings, created by transforming intricate origami crease patterns into bold, abstract compositions. These works are characterized by configurations of geometrical shapes, vibrant colors and sharp lines, reflecting Morris's interest in architecture, design, and the complexities of urban life. This edition from 2009 is based on the crease pattern “Penguin” by Noboru Miyajima, which is folded into the shape of a rockhopper penguin.
Rock Creek (Capital)
2002/2009
Silkscreen on rag paper, 97 x 97 cm (38¼ x 38¼ in). Edition of 55, signed and numbered.
With her series Capital, Sarah Morris continued her investigation into the way we decode and understand the structured world around us. This edition is a colorful, abstract and geometric depiction of Rock Creek, a park and stream in Washington, D.C., and part of her broader investigation of the US capital and its symbolic representation.
Taurus (Origami)
2009
From Forty Are Better Than One
9-part leporello (zig zag fold), digital pigment print (Ditone) on 188 g Hahnemühle Photo Rag paper, 32 x 225 cm (12½ x 88½ in). Edition: 75, signed and numbered.
This edition is part of Sarah Morris’s broader Origami series, wherein she transforms intricate origami crease patterns into bold, abstract compositions of geometric shapes.
EUR 2,200
Rings
2009
Silkscreen on rag paper, 60 x 60 cm (23¾ x 23¾ in). Edition of 25, signed and numbered.
Part of Sarah Morris’s Beijing series, this edition was created shortly after the 2008 Olympic Games. For this series, Morris created abstract and vibrant geometric compositions to explore the Chinese capital’s rapid transformation, global visibility, urban landscape and sociopolitical dynamics. The interlocking circles that feature prominently in the Beijing works, including this edition, evoke both the Olympic rings and Beijing’s ring roads, symbolizing the city’s infrastructural and cultural intersections.
The edition was co-published with Monopol Magazine, Berlin.
1972 (Rings)
2007
From Wall Works
Wall painting in Household Gloss Paint. Limited to 20 installations, with a signed and numbered certificate.
This large-scale edition takes its title from Sarah Morris’s seventh film 1972, an intimate portrait of Dr. Georg Sieber, the head psychologist of the Munich police and the Olympic security team at the time of the 1972 attack. Just like in her later Beijing series, the interlocking circles symbolize the iconic Olympic rings.
The work is part of the collection of the Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin.
Endeavor (Los Angeles)
2006
From Door Cycle
Silkscreen on metal door panel 211 x 90 x 4.5 cm (83 x 35½ x 1½ in). Edition: 15, signed and numbered on separate label.
This silkscreen edition on metal is part of Sarah Morris’s Los Angeles series, a multifaceted exploration of the city’s architecture, culture, and identity. Endeavor takes its name from the legendary LA-based talent and media agency, and through its abstract composition of flat planes of color, it offers a nuanced commentary on the interplay between space, power, and cultural symbolism in the city.
William Morris (Los Angeles)
2005
Silkscreen on rag paper, 97 x 97 cm (38¼ x 38¼ in). Edition of 55, signed and numbered on verso.
Sarah Morris’s edition William Morris is part of her Los Angeles series, a multifaceted exploration of the city’s architecture, culture, and identity. The title references the William Morris Agency, a prominent LA-based talent agency that later merged with Endeavor to form one of the “Big 4”. Through its abstract composition of interlocking geometric forms and vibrant colours, the work reflects on the structures of cultural production and the dynamics of power within the entertainment industry and the city itself.
Pools – Carillon (Miami)
2004
Silkscreen on rag paper, 97 x 97 cm (38¼ x 38¼ in). Edition of 55, signed and numbered.
For this edition, Sarah Morris drew inspiration from the famous Hotel Carillon in Miami Beach and the surrounding pool architecture, translating its modernist lines, reflective surfaces, and tropical color palette into a dynamic interplay of intersecting forms and saturated hues. The composition’s overlapping structures and rhythmic fragmentation evoke both the physical layout of Miami's urban and leisure spaces and the psychological tension between surface aesthetics and deeper systems of control and design.
Color Referents (Miami)
2003
Portfolio of 9 digital pigment prints (Ditone) on photo rag paper, 68 x 68 cm (26¾ x 26¾ in) each. Edition of 40, signed and numbered on colophon.
This portfolio of nine prints by Sarah Morris offers a photographic glimpse into the visual and cultural references that inform her Miami series. Each image captures a fragment of the city’s vibrant and complex identity – from poolside leisure and luxury consumer goods to high-speed sports, military flyovers, and Art Deco architecture. The selection reflects Morris’s interest in the intersection of spectacle, branding, and urban structure. Serving as a visual archive or mood board, this portfolio reveals the material and psychological textures of Miami that underpin her abstract geometric paintings, translating lived reality into a coded visual language.
Set EUR 4,500
