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Morgan Russell: A Retrospective was the first comprehensive exhibition of the work by Morgan Russell. Russell (1886­–1953) was a modern American artist who, alongside Stanton Macdonald-Wright, was the founder of Synchromism, a provocative style of abstract painting that dated from 1912 to the 1920s. Russell’s “synchromies,” which analogized color to music, were an early American contribution to the rise of Modernism.

Synchromism, which means “with color,” was one of the earliest attempts to create paintings composed of abstract shapes and colors. It became a true movement when Russell and MacDonald-Wright issued a statement of their intentions during joint exhibitions of their work in Munich, Paris, and New York in 1913–1914 Their objective was to indicate mass and spatial rhythms with advancing and receding colors rather than by linear definition. Synchromism represents a brief episode, yet it remains the only movement in the early history of modern art, which is distinctly American, and only recently had the contributions of the Syncromists became understood and appreciated.

Inspiration for the exhibition was the gift of Russell paintings, drawings, and archival material to the Montclair Art Museum from insurance executive and art collector Henry Reed. Morgan Russell: A Retrospective places, for the first time, the Synchromy years within the broader context of Russell’s entire career, since it featured a number of representational works, many never before exhibited. In Buffalo, one of the featured paintings was the museum’s Synchromy in Orange: To Form, 1913–1914, regarded generally as the most important work of the Synchromist style.

The Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey, organized this exhibition, which included 100 paintings and drawing alongside 50 letters, sketches, and notebooks by the artist. Marilyn Kushner, Curator and author of the accompanying book, noted that the show shed new light on the sometimes-misunderstood period of art history, which saw the development of abstraction.

This exhibition was organized by Curator Marilyn Kushner and the Montclair Art Museum.