Alpha Tau

Rivulets of paint flow diagonally downward from the left and right sides of this large painting, framing a wide expanse of raw canvas. In this example from Morris Louis’ iconic Unfurleds series, the artist carefully poured his paint, tilting the canvas to control the flow of each rivulet. Louis adapted his distinctive approach from Helen Frankenthaler’s stain paintings, which consist of thinned acrylic paints—a medium newly available in the 1950s—poured onto unprimed canvas to create a unique, saturated effect.