Painter and printmaker Carl A. Morris was born on May 12, 1911 in Yorba Linda, California, to parents who were citrus farmers. In the 1920s he studied at the Chicago Art Institute and in Paris and Vienna, and after returning to the US in1935, he worked for a brief time at Universal Studios in Los Angeles. He then obtained a teaching position at the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Franscisco Art Institute), where he remained until 1938, when he was recruited by the WPA Federal Arts Project to open the Spokane Arts Center in Washington. He and artists such as Guy Anderson, Morris Graves, Mark Tobey, and Kenneth Callahan taught at the school for three years, forming what would become informally known as the Northwest School. At this time, Morris' work was inspired by the social realist style that sprang from the Ashcan School, and much of his work focused on representational and figurative subjects. 

Morris married the sculptor and teacher Hilda Grossman and they moved to Oregon in 1941, after Morris won a commission to paint a mural for the Eugene Post Office. They soon settled in Portland and Morris, while working for the military as a camouflage painter, continued to paint and exhibit. By the time the country began to emerge from World War II, his work had largely shifted to Abstract Expressionism. Despite strong ties to New York through his friendships with Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, Joseph Campbell, and Lionel Trilling, he wasn't interested in identifying as a New York painter and wanted to avoid the commercialism of a major art scene. Instead, he remained devoted to the Pacific Northwest and, together with Hilda, strived to create a thriving artists' scene there, stating "We wanted to make our lives rich enough to be worth living." (<i>Carl Morris Paintings 1939-1992</i>. Exhibition catalogue. Essay by Barry Johnson. Portland: Portland Art Museum, 1993.)

A summer teaching position at the University of Colorado in 1957 again changed the direction of his style. His work took on a brighter palette and lighter composition, which met with praise from critics, having shed some of the heavy earth tones and shapes of his colder, wetter hometown climate. By the 1980s he was considered by some critics as "Oregon's most important painter". He and Hilda were both honored with the prestigious Governor's Art Award in 1985. Morris continued to live, work, and exhibit in Oregon until his death in Portland on June 3, 1993.

As well as exhibiting nationally and internationally, Morris’ work is included in public and private collections worldwide, including: the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Guggenheim Museum in New York; the Corcoran Gallery and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.; the San Francisco Art Museum; the Portland Art Museum; and the Seattle Art Museum, among others. In 1993, the Portland Art Museum honored Morris with a fifty year retrospective.