Fish Assuming the Form of Consciousness

Graves’s work, like Mark Tobey’s, was greatly influenced by Eastern spiritualism, aestheticism, and philosophy. After dropping out of high school, he traveled with his brother as a steamship hand for the American Mail Line, which stopped at every major point in Asia. His response to Japan was immediate and electric: “I at once had the feeling that this was the right way to do everything. It was the acceptance of nature not the resistance to it. I had no sense that I was to be a painter, but I breathed a different air.” Graves, as a conscientious objector, spent eleven months in prison during World War II. In 1945 he was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship to go to Japan but was prevented from entering the country by postwar restrictions. (“JapanAmerica: Points of Contact, 1876–1970,” curated by Nancy E. Green and presented at the Johnson Museum August 27–December 18, 2016)