[2] Between the 1940s through the 1960s, he worked and exhibited alongside Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, and Jackson Pollock, among other contemporary American artists in New York City.

[3] After retiring from teaching in 1983, he lived and worked at his home and studio in Grand Portage Indian Reservation by Lake Superior until his death in 2000.

[3] Much of Morrison's non-figurative painting reflects the artist's sustained interest in landscape influenced by Indigenous visual cultures.

[2] In 2020, he became the first Native American artist to be included in the New York School collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.[2] Morrison was a member of the Grand Portage Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe.

[4] He lived in Duluth, Minnesota for years and then moved back to New York City in 1954, where he became acquainted with prominent American expressionists: Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline and Jackson Pollock.

[1] Morrison suffered some life-threatening illnesses, including being diagnosed with Castleman's disease in 1984, but kept on working until he died at Red Rock in April 2000.

[7] In 2022, Morrison's work was honored by the United States Postal Service with the release of a stamp series featuring five of his paintings.

[7] Morrison's work was part of Stretching the Canvas: Eight Decades of Native Painting (2019–21), a survey at the National Museum of the American Indian George Gustav Heye Center in New York.

[9] Twin Cities Tile and Marble Company became experts in moving Morrison's beautiful granite "Tableau – A Native American Mosaic."