ABOUT
Sam Gilliam (b. 1933, d. 2022) was one of the great innovators in postwar American painting. He emerged from the Washington, D.C. scene in the mid-1960s with works that elaborated upon and disrupted the ethos of Color School painting. A series of formal breakthroughs soon led to his canonical Drape paintings, which expanded upon the tenets of Abstract Expressionism in entirely new ways.
Suspending stretcherless lengths of painted canvas from the walls or ceilings of exhibition spaces, Gilliam transformed both his medium and the contexts in which it was viewed. For an African American artist in the nation’s capital at the height of the Civil Rights movement, this was not merely an aesthetic proposition—it was a way of defining art’s role in a society undergoing dramatic change.
Gilliam subsequently pursued a pioneering course in which experimentation was the only constant. Inspired by the improvisatory ethos of jazz, his lyrical abstractions continued to evolve, embracing an increasing variety of forms, moods, and materials.
SELECTED artWORKS
SAM GILLIAM
Untitled, 2022
Watercolor on washi paper
78.125 x 42.25 ′′
EXHIBITIONS
Sam Gilliam’s solo exhibitions have been presented at prestigious institutions including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago, IL. His work has also been displayed in major international venues, including the Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin, Germany. Gilliam’s pieces have been included in notable group exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; the Tate Modern, London, UK; and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. His work is held in the collections of institutions such as the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C.; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; and the Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY.