Malcolm Morley: Shipwreck: NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale, Florida November 20, 2022 - April 16, 2023

Beginning November 20 through April 16, 2023, NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale will present Malcolm Morley: Shipwreck, in collaboration with Hall Art Foundation. Malcolm Morley (b. London, 1931-2018) achieved widespread acclaim in the 1960s for his photo-based paintings. This exhibition focuses on the recurring ship motif in Morley’s work from his earliest superrealist paintings of ocean liners in the 1960s to his imaginative paintings of complex compositions of battles and other catastrophes based on still-lifes he arranged of toy model boats and planes in later years.

As a child, Morley enjoyed making model boats and planes from balsa wood. He was only 13 when his treasured battleship HMS Nelson was destroyed in a German bombing raid that demolished part of his family home during World War II. This model, its perfection forever forestalled, was the underlying inspiration for his maritime scenes. Morley and his wife Lida resided in Bellport, New York, on the shore of Bellport Bay, a favorite seaside painting spot of the early 20th-century realist artist William J. Glackens, whose exhibition By the Sea, By the Sea runs concurrently with Malcolm Morley: Shipwreck.