Untitled
Artist: Sam Gilliam (American, 1933 - 2022)
Date: 1968
Dimensions:
H: 23 5/8 in. (60 cm); W: 18 in. (45.7 cm)
Medium: Watercolor with silver sprayed enamel.
Classification: Drawings
Credit Line: Museum purchase
Object number: 1973.23
Label Text:Untitled showcases Sam Gilliam’s highly acclaimed approach to painting, developed during the 1960s, in which he folded, crumpled, and saturated paper with paint, a technique he continued to evolve during his long career. He used vibrant pink, orange, and purple watercolor in addition to shiny silver sprayed enamel to create a dynamic, abstract composition. In speaking about his process, Gilliam stated, “You go with the flow, and you don’t have to play just for the accidental aspect. You can learn to do deliberate things … The real thing is not to have control of what happens, just to set it into motion.”
Early on, Gilliam recognized watercolor’s significant role as a vehicle to explore the effects he could achieve through manipulating his substrate and methods of applying pigment. Such experiments led to the remarkable innovations in canvas painting found in Gilliam’s abstract “Draped Paintings” series begun in 1968, the same year that he painted this work. Much like his manipulation of the paper’s surface in Untitled, in his canvas works Gilliam applied layers of deeply saturated paint to folded, draped, and suspended unstretched canvases.
Early on, Gilliam recognized watercolor’s significant role as a vehicle to explore the effects he could achieve through manipulating his substrate and methods of applying pigment. Such experiments led to the remarkable innovations in canvas painting found in Gilliam’s abstract “Draped Paintings” series begun in 1968, the same year that he painted this work. Much like his manipulation of the paper’s surface in Untitled, in his canvas works Gilliam applied layers of deeply saturated paint to folded, draped, and suspended unstretched canvases.
Not on view
In Collection(s)