Sam Gilliam

Sam Gilliam ( born November 30, 1933, Tupelo, Mississippi) is an American visual artist and representatives of Color Field Painting and Lyrical Abstraction.

Life

Gilliam studied at the University of Louisville, where in 1955 he obtained a Bachelor of Arts. After an interruption by military service in 1958 he continued his studies and graduated in 1961 with a Master of Fine Arts. From 1964 he taught in addition to his artistic activity at several American art schools. Gilliam gained eight honorary doctorates (1980 College of Arts and Sciences, University of Louisville, 1986 Memphis College of Art, 1987 Atlanta College of Art in 1990; Northwestern University, Evanston, 1993 Corcoran College of Art and Design, Washington, DC; 1996 American University, Washington, DC; 1997 University of Wisconsin -Madison, 1999 University of Tampa ).

Work

The early work of the artist was first coined by German expressionism and figurative painters of the San Francisco Bay. After moving to Washington in 1962, Gilliam learned important representatives of the Washington Color School as Robert Downing, Howard Mehring and Paul Reed know. After extensive experiments with the developed by Helen Frankenthaler Soak - Stain technique emerged in the following months already very independent works, which were shown in 1964 in the first solo exhibition of the artist. The 1967 resulting watercolors on folded or crumpled paper met with great interest. A year later, Gilliam realized the first "Suspended Paintings", color -soaked canvases that hung the first time in the history of the visual arts freed from the ceiling of the room from the frame or were draped on the walls. With this artistic pioneering succeeded Gilliam finally to position itself in the international art scene. The solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1971 and the participation in the 36th Venice Biennale in 1972 marked significant artistic highlights.

In the following decades, the dynamic compositions and the materials and techniques have become more varied. The artist now also used wood metal, stone and plastic in his paintings and assemblages.

Works of the artist are in the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington; Tate Modern, London; Musée d' Art Moderne, Paris; Museum of Modern Art Ludwig, Vienna. Stiftung

Sources and Literature

• Davis, Hugh M. ( Ed. ): Sam Gilliam. Indoor & Outdoor Paintings 1967-1978. With an essay by Jay Kloner. University Gallery, University of Massachusetts / Amherst, Sept 16 - November 5, 1978, Amherst, MA 1978.
• Young, Kenneth: Interview with Sam Gilliam, September 18, 1984, Washington DC ( Transcription), Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
• Forgey, Benjamin: Interview with Sam Gilliam, 4th - 11th November 1989, Washington, D.C. ( Transcription), Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
• Binstock, Jonathan P.: Sam Gilliam: The Making of A Carreer, 1962-1973. Diss University of Michigan 2000.
• Binstock, Jonathan P: Sam Gilliam: A Retrospective. Forewords by Walter Hopps and Jacquelyn D. Serwer. Corcoran Gallery of Art & University of California Press, Berkeley / Washington, DC, 2005.
• Energy / Experimentation. Black Artists and Abstraction 1964-1980. ( Frank Bowling / Barbara Chase - Riboud / Ed Clark / Melvin Edwards / Fred Eversley / Sam Gilliam / Daniel LaRue Johnson / Tom Lloyd / Al Loving / Joe Overstreet / Howardena Pindell / Haywood Bill Rivers / Alma Thomas / Jack Whitten / William T. Williams). Studio Museum Harlem, New York, 2006.