Sam Gilliam, as Alex Greenberger pointed out in yesterday’s online obit for ARTnews, has always been in the artworld’s eye. But with today’s diversity-conscious emphasis on artists of color, his mesmerizingly mottled canvases, textured surfaces and other inventions have lately gained status as museum must-haves. Simplistically classified as the works of a Washington Color School painter, his styles developed and evolved over the decades, but were always informed by his ability to engage viewers through the masterful deployment of color.
Works by Gilliam, who died on June 25 of renal failure, are evident everywhere. In one of my last pre-pandemic museum visits (in December, 2019), I delighted in navigating around and through his delicately draped paintings from the 1960s and 1970s—stained canvases (shades of Helen Frankenthaler?), displayed to great advantage in the sprawling spaces of Dia:Beacon.
Transgressing the boundaries between painting and sculpture, they need to be experienced through time and space, by navigating around and in between their folds—the only way to properly appreciate Double Merge (below), 1968, a joint purchase shared by Dia Art Foundation and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston:
Photos by Lee Rosenbaum
Having savored Gilliam’s early works just before the start of the pandemic, I’d find it fitting to resume my museum travels with a jaunt to Washington, to admire his late works in Sam Gilliam: Full Circle (to Sept. 11)—an array of tondos that line the curved walls of the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington. Sadly, the exhibition’s title now has new resonance: His life has come “full circle,” in what must now be experienced as a memorial show and a hometown’s homage:
Courtesy: Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden
Across the Mall from the Hirshhorn, the National Gallery is poised to reopen this Thursday its I. M. Pei-designed East Building, which will display a Gilliam. The East Building has been shuttered since February 28 to accommodate the final stages of replacing its Atrium skylight.
As described by the National Gallery on its website:
Since 2019, additional work has been underway to renovate the galleries on the west side, improve accessibility throughout the building, overhaul select building systems, and replace the iconic Atrium skylight, which was original to the building and is over 40 years old. From February until June 2022, the East Building is closed to accommodate the highest-impact renovation work, including the completion of the skylight replacement and the removal of related construction safety structures and equipment.
When I covered for the Wall Street Journal, in 2016, the $69 million, top-to-bottom renovation and expansion of that building, the capital project had included two new skylit Tower Galleries. Gilliam’s Relative, 1969, was among the works then featured in the East Building’s Washington Color School installation.
A tweet yesterday by the National Gallery alluded to the planned installation, when the East Building reopens, of another early Gilliam that it owns (thanks to its acquisition of the Corcoran Collection)—Shoot Six, 1965:
An artist who beautifully influenced American abstraction and many generations of contemporary artists, may you rest in peace. 🕊
Spend some time with this painting by Gilliam, located in the Upper Level of our East Building, when the building reopens on June 30.
— National Gallery of Art (@ngadc) June 27, 2022
But back to the Hirshhorn: Added to that museum’s website for the Gilliam show, which opened in May, is a new link—The Hirshhorn mourns the life of Sam Gilliam—with a statement by director Melissa Chiu:
We are grateful Sam Gilliam along with members of his family and studio family experienced the joyful opening of his Hirshhorn exhibition. On May 24, Sam expressed his pleasure in our presentation of “Sam Gilliam: Full Circle” and support for engaging broad audiences in his chosen hometown of six decades….
Anyone wishing to share their expression of sympathy is invited to email hirshhorn.inmemoriam@si.edu. The museum will forward condolences to Sam Gilliam’s family and studio family.
The Hirshhorn plans to hold a symposium devoted to Sam Gilliam in the fall of 2022. (Details to come.)
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