Morris Louis belonged to a generation of American abstract painters who rose to prominence following the emergence of Abstract Expressionism. He attended the Maryland Institute of Fine and Applied Arts on a full scholarship. In New York, Louis was influenced by the paintings of the Abstract Expressionists and read the critical texts of Clement Greenberg, who advocated the concept of "flatness" - asserting that painting should embrace its integrity as a two-dimensional surface. Louis is best known for work produced during the last nine years of his life when he began to think in terms of open color, which he "freed" from shape and drawing in an endeavor to attain an essence of color which was purely visual.