SHARE
Burton Morris, a Pittsburgh native, broke into the art world in a similar fashion to Andy Warhol, who also hails from Pittsburgh, when Absolut Vodka selected him to design artwork for “Absolut Pennsylvania,” a national advertising campaign started by Warhol. The piece he was commissioned to design had all the markings of a Burton Morris masterpiece—bold colors, thick lines and varying sizes of triangular “shards” used for shadowing, outlining and accentuating features of the artwork. Like Warhol, Morris understands the power of personal branding and has been working on the “shards” his whole life, ever since he was inspired by 500-year-old Albrecht Dürer etchings that he saw in a museum as a young boy. Those shards that Morris has been developing since childhood would eventually become the distinguishing characteristics of his artwork which has been immortalized in the homes of corporate giants, in Kanye West’s “Heartless” music video, in Oprah Winfrey’s office, via a Barack Obama-commissioned guitar, and on the set of the TV show