Mark Tobey in his Studio, Basel

Charles Seliger has been associated with the abstract expressionist movement since the mid-1940s when his works were exhibited at Peggy Guggenheim's Gallery in New York. Throughout his career, his art relied heavily on chance --the automatism of the Surrealists--as a point of departure. He would then develop meticulous and intricate compositions influenced by his interest in natural sciences. The group of fourteen works on paper (2018.81 -- 2018.94) bequeathed to the Morgan by Elaine G. Weitzen, includes such imagery inspired by microscopic organic forms and environmental landscapes. The group also includes two portrait sketches of artists, one of Mark Tobey (2018.92), a close friend of Seliger's, the other of Henri Matisse (2018.81).