A bit about Maurice Burns: born in Alabama in 1937 • mixed race (Native American-African-Scottish) • graduated from high school in Indiana in 1955 • served in the US Army
from 1960 – 63 • earned a BFA in Painting from RISD in 1972 (with help from the GI Bill) • earned an MFA from the Royal
College of Art/London in 1974 • helped launch a new program at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe in 1976 • living and painting in and around Santa Fe ever since • solo
show Various Forms of Association on view from December 2018 – March 2019 at Gerald Peters Projects in Santa Fe
ASSO C I AT ION by Maurice Burns 72 PT
I WAS BOR N I N TH E D E E P SOUTH —Talladega, AL. Hardcore Jim Crow/KKK country… had to sit in the back of the bus and all that bullshit.
When I was 13 my family moved to Gary, IN. Inner-city black environment. The first place I’d ever seen in my life with black bus drivers, postmen, firemen, policemen—and the high school was like the white high schools in the South: brick, two stories… Coming from the South it was amazing to see that. I graduated from Gary Roosevelt High in ’55 and had a high IQ in math so I went to Purdue University extension to take engineering courses while working as a bricklayer. After two years I decided I didn’t want to be an engineer so I dropped out. Got drafted and was in the army from 1960–63.
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// Free Association
Maurice Burns 72 PT
