The Morris Museum of Art announces the death of artist Philip Morsberger
Jerry Siegel, Philip Morsberger, Georgia, 2006, printed 2012. Digital C-print. Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, Georgia. Courtesy of the artist.
AUGUSTA, GA
.- The world lost a great artist with the death of Philip Morsberger on Sunday, January 3, 2021, of complications due to COVID-19.
Philip Morsberger was blessed with many giftshis extraordinary curiosity and creativity, both of which sustained his skills as an artist, were only the most obvious, so, naturally, they are the immediate focus whenever his name comes up. But his interests were protean and encompassing, said Kevin Grogan, director of the Morris Museum of Art. He could speak with the same knowledgeability and enthusiasm about the film scores of Alfred Newman (only the greatest film composer who ever lived!) and the novels of Charles Dickens, which he read over and over again with devotional rapture. Old movies, radio dramas from the thirties, comic strips from Smokey Stover to Prince Valiant (Hall Foster was a genius!) fired his imagination and fed his artistry. Perhaps his greatest gift was friendship. No one enjoyed friendship more than Philip, and no one ever made and kept as many friends as he. He found commonality with, well, everyone. His kindness and generosity of spirit were innate and unsurpassable, and it is those qualities that touched generations of students, countless colleagues, and numberless friends over the length of a long life well-lived.