About Sam Gilliam
Throughout his life and career, Sam Gilliam pushed the boundaries of abstraction by consistently inventing forms and incorporating new materials into his work. In the 1960s, Gilliam established himself as a pioneer of abstract art when he freed the canvas from the constraints of the wooden stretcher, forever changing the trajectory of painting. His iconic Drape paintings, which he continued to iterate over the course of his life, blur the boundaries between painting, sculpture and architecture and emphasize the experience and possibilities of painting.
Gilliam is widely revered as a brilliant colorist who used vibrant tones in compelling new ways, and is lauded as an expansive member of the Washington Color School. His work is often considered an evolution of Abstract Expressionism, alongside notable artists such as Jackson Pollock and Kenneth Noland, and is recognized for his revolutionary use of color as a means to create structure on the canvas and for his understanding of paint as a sculptural material.
For Gilliam, artmaking was inherently political. During the tumultuous decades of the sixties and seventies, when many artists turned to figurative works to address social issues,
Gilliam remained committed to abstraction, which allowed his work to be interpreted in myriad ways. While his influences were as wide-ranging as European modernism, jazz, constructivism, and renaissance painting, he simultaneously advanced appreciation of the work of Black artists on his own terms and, in 1972, was the first African American artist to represent the United States in a solo presentation at the Venice Biennale.
Gilliam was included in the Venice Biennale for a second time in 2017, and was the subject of solo exhibitions at The Museum of Modern Art, New York (1971), The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (1982), J.B. Speed Memorial Museum, Louisville, Kentucky (1996), Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland (2018), and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (2022). Gilliam received the U.S. State Department’s Medal of Arts in 2015 for his cultural diplomacy, as well as honorary doctorates from eight universities. He was elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2022. In addition to his countless professional accolades, Gilliam maintained an active relationship with young artists and curators through his work as a teacher and his openness to art practitioners and scholars visiting his studio.
Explore pivotal moments in Gilliam’s life
1930
Sam Gilliam is born on Thanksgiving Day in Tupelo, Mississippi to Estery and Sam Gilliam Sr. He is the seventh of eight children of Sam and Estery Gilliam. His father, Sam Sr., is a carpenter, while his mother, Estery, is a seamstress and the primary caregiver for the large family.
1933
Early years in Tupelo, Mississippi
Growing up in the South during the Great Depression, Gilliam was surrounded by his seven siblings, five sisters and two brothers – Isabella, Essie, Lizzie, Clenteria, Lillie, Clarence, and Calvin.The Gilliam children attended church regularly and recited their lessons at the dining room table.
Born to parents who made a living from craft, Gilliam’s artistic impulses were present and encouraged as a young child, as he drew pictures in the dirt with sticks or assembled toys from wood and flattened bottle tops.
Gilliam hid his childhood’s influence on his artistic practice in easter eggs throughout his work, which references carousels, fireflies and Ferris wheels, kites, abacuses, among other from his youth. In adulthood, he continued to derive inspiration from childhood toys, like a red plastic truck, marbles wooden planes, scattered throughout his studios and homes.
1940
In 1941, the Gilliam family moves to Louisville, Kentucky, a city more progressive than Tupelo yet still segregated. Coming of age in 1940s Kentucky, Gilliam attends only segregated schools. He continues to pursue his artistic interests throughout his childhood education, which are nurtured by his teachers throughout elementary, middle, and high school. The support and encouragement Gilliam received from his instructors during his early schooling shaped him both in his 30 years as a teacher and in the six decades he spent committed to his art.
1942 – 1949
Childhood in Louisville
As an elementary school student at Virginia Avenue Elementary School, Gilliam is encouraged to pursue his talent in art by fifth grade art teacher Mrs. McQuinney.
At Madison Junior High School Gilliam enters into a special program art where his interest is nurtured by teachers Mrs. Jackson and Mrs. Jones.
In tenth grade, Gilliam transfers to Central High School, where, despite not having a specialized art program, he continues to receive encouragement from his parents and teachers.
1950
Gilliam graduates from Central High School in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1951, before enrolling in the University of Louisville. After graduating, he joins ROTC and serves in the US Army, where he is stationed in Yokohama, Japan.
During his tour, Gilliam first experiences the work of Yves Klein, which has a profound influence on his artistic practice. Following his tour, Gilliam returns to Louisville to complete his MFA where he begins his over thirty year teaching career.
In 1954, a mutual friend introduces Gilliam and Dorothy Butler, with whom he will eventually marry and raise three children with.
1951
Graduates from Central High School in Louisville, Kentucky.
1951 – 1955
Attends University of Louisville, earning a bachelor of arts degree with a major in creative art.
1956 – 1958
Joins the ROTC and serves in the U.S. Army, stationed in Yokohama, Japan.
After completing his undergraduate studies, Gilliam begins a tour for the U.S. Army in Japan. This trip would have a profound influence on Gilliam’s artistic trajectory, as it is where he first experiences Yves Klein’s work, visits a Picasso exhibit at the Bridgestone Gallery, and sees Frank Lloyd Wright’s Imperial Hotel in Tokyo.
1958
Return to Louisville
Upon completing his tour in Japan, Gilliam returns to the University of Louisville where he attends the MFA graduate program at the Hite Art Institute, teaching public school during the day and pursuing his studies at night.
As a teacher at Jackson Junior High School, Gilliam joins the NAACP executive board as a youth council advisor and helps coordinate sit-ins and pickets in conjunction with the Unitarian church.
1960
The 1960s is a decade of growth and expansion for Sam Gilliam. After marrying Dorothy Butler in 1962, Gilliam moves to Washington, D.C. on September 1, where he will reside for the next six decades. Following the move, Gilliam continues to expand his practice, mingling with the Washington Color School community.
In 1962, he also completes his first major series in watercolors, Park Invention. With such a close proximity to New York, Gilliam starts to visit the art hub regularly, where he develops a fascination for the work of Hans Hofmann, Piet Mondrian, Barnett Newman, and Mark Rothko. By 1963, Gilliam begins pouring paint on raw canvases, staining them.
An influx of grants towards the end of the decade enable Gilliam to start producing work on a larger scale. In 1969, Gilliam presents his first large-scale Drape painting, Carousel Form II (1969) at Jefferson Place Gallery.
The 1960s also sees Gilliam and Butler expand their family with the births of their three children, Stephanie Jessica, Melissa Lynne, and L. Franklin.
1962-1965
Early Years in Washington, D.C.
Gilliam teaches at McKinley Technical High School, bringing students to the Barnett-Aden Gallery, the first Black-owned private art gallery in the U.S., which exhibited Washington-based painter Alma Thomas, as well as other senior Black artists, including Romare Bearden, Charles White, and Elizabeth Catlett.
After establishing his first Washington, D.C. studio on 17th and Q Street, Gilliam presents watercolors and a single large-scale painting with Adams-Morgan Gallery in D.C.. This exhibition allows the young artist to meet Washington Color School painter Tom Downing, who becomes a mentor throughout his early career, and painter Rockne Krebs, an important friend, collaborator, and studio mate of Gilliam’s.
On August 28, 1963, Gilliam and Butler participate in the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which saw over 250,000 individuals protesting for the civil and economic rights of African Americans and culminated in Dr. Martin Luther King’s historic “I Have a Dream” speech.
During the summer of 1962, Gilliam completes his first major series, Park Invention, comprising impressions in oil and watercolor depicting Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C.
Gilliam’s family expands in the 1960s with the births of their three children, Stephanie Jessica, Melissa Lynne, and L. Franklin.
On August 28, 1963, Gilliam and Butler participate in the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which saw over 250,000 individuals protesting for the civil and economic rights of African Americans and culminated in Dr. Martin Luther King’s historic “I Have a Dream” speech.
Poem by Sam Gilliam, c. 1965.
1966-1967
Late 60s in Washington, D.C.
Gilliam participates in significant group exhibitions that are nationally and internationally recognized, in particular, The Negro in American Art at University of California, Los Angeles (September 11–October 16, 1966) and The First World Festival of Negro Arts, in Dakar (April 1–24, 1966).
Gilliam debuts stained canvases with his first exhibition at Jefferson Place Gallery in Washington, D.C., Sam Gilliam, November 28–16 December, 1966). This year, Gilliam meets curator Walter Hopps, an important confidante and supporter throughout Gilliam’s career.
In 1967, Gilliam receives his first Individual Artist Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and in 1968, a $50,000 grant (with a $5,000 yearly stipend) from Washington Gallery of Modern art, led by Hopps. This funding enables Gilliam to leave full-time teaching to concentrate on art-making.
During an exhibition at Jefferson Place Gallery, Gilliam’s work Red Petals (1966) catches the eye of Marjorie Phillips, co-founder of the Phillips Collection, who purchases the painting, deciding to mount a solo exhibition of Gilliam’s work, Sam Gilliam: Paintings (October 7 –November 14, 1967).
1968
A Pivotal Year
Deemed “A Pivotal Year” by scholar and curator Mary Schmidt Campbell, in 1968, while Gilliam continued to paint on stretched canvas, he began to experiment with draping.
An early instance, Swing Sketch (1968), exemplifies how Gilliam played with staining and pouring paint on deliberate folds, hanging the canvas from three points on the flat wall. With Niagara (1968), another example, Gilliam begins to interact with the architecture more intentionally, suspending the draped canvas between two walls as a connector.
In 1969, Jefferson Place Gallery features Gilliam’s first large-scale Drape paintings, including Carousel Form II (1969). In New York, Gilliam participates in X to the Fourth Power, a group exhibition curated by William T. Williams at the Studio Museum in Harlem, which includes artist Melvin Edwards. This marks the first of five exhibitions that the trio will exhibit in together over the next decade.
This year, Corcoran Gallery of Art director Walter Hopps organizes the exhibition, Gilliam, Krebs, McGowin, inviting Gilliam, Rockne Krebs and Ed McGowin to present new site-specific commissions. Encouraged by Hopps to expand their work for the show in both scale and ambition, Gilliam includes the monumental Drape painting, Light Depth (1969), which responds directly to the museum’s architecture.
Here, Gilliam is pictured in the Corcoran’s galleries while Light Depth peeks through the background.
1970
During the 1970s, Gilliam continues to expand his practice, exploring cutting canvas and collage techniques, developing his Black and White paintings. Gilliam broadens his reach and recognition with international and national exhibitions including the 36th Venice Biennale in 19723, and surveys of Gilliam’s work organized at the Speed Art Museum in 1975 and at the University Gallery, UMass Amherst, in 1978.
Printmaking takes on a larger role in Gilliam’s practice as be begins working with master printer Lou Stovall starting in 1972. Gilliam participates in residences in 1975 at the Brandywine Workshop in Philadelphia, and in 1979, at Vermillion Editions Ltd, in Minneapolis, where he completes Coffee Thyme, a series of prints now in MoMA’s collection.
Continuing to work on a larger-scale, Gilliam completes public commissions and outdoor works like Seahorses at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1975 and Custom Road Slide at Artpark in Lewiston, NY, in 1977.
1971
National and International Recognition
In 1971, Gilliam presents his first major solo exhibition at a New York institution at The Museum of Modern Art as part of its ‘Projects’ series.
Gilliam’s work is also included in notable group exhibition, Works for New Spaces, inaugurating the Walker Art Center’s new building in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Gilliam’s contribution is Carousel Merge (1971), a 75-foot- long Drape painting hung from the ceiling in the public space between the museum’s galleries.
The same year, Gilliam, together with other artists, withdraws from Contemporary Black Artists in America, an exhibition of 75 Black artists at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, in solidarity with the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition.
Formed by a group of Black artists, the Coalition initiated the project in 1969 following long consultations with the museum on the lack of representation of Black artists in the museum’s exhibition program and collection. The Coalition is ultimately critical of the exhibition being organized by a white curator, the museum’s lack of consultation with Black art experts in the selection of artists and the timing of the exhibition.
In response, Gilliam co-authors an Op-Ed in Artforum on the subject with John Dowell, Melvin Edwards, Richard, Daniel Johnson, Joe Overstreet and William T. Williams.
In 1972 Gilliam’s work is included in the 36th Venice Biennale at the US Pavilion, curated by Walter Hopps (pictured at the far left). Six artists are represented along with Gilliam: Ron Davis, Richard Estes, James Nutt, Keith Sonnier and Diane Arbus.
As a visiting artist at the University of Wisconsin in 1973, Gilliam meets fellow faculty member, William Weege, and creates his first prints at Wegee’s Jones Road Print Shop and Stable in Barneveld, Wisconsin.
In this photograph taken by Gregory Conniff, c. 1973, Gilliam raises a paper pulp covered fist.
With funding from a new ‘Art and Architecture’ federal program, sponsored by the United States General Services Administration (GSA), the Philadelphia Museum of Art commissions a series of artists to create public works.
Once commissioned, Gilliam visits the museum several times, taking inspiration from a bronze sculpture of Neptune outside of the museum and the bronze rings encircling its façade, a reference to rings, according to Greek mythology, used to tie seahorses to Neptune’s temple.
Aided by sail makers, Gilliam creates Seahorses, his first outdoor installation and the largest scale Drape painting to date, billowing on the museum’s façade during the summer Philadelphia Festival, organized by the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance (April 26 – May 25, 1975.). The paintings are installed the following summer at the Brooklyn Museum.
In 1977, Gilliam develops inventive print works using new techniques at the Fabric Workshop in Philadelphia. They exceed the usual dimensions of prints and are displayed suspended from the ceiling, evoking Gilliam’s Drape paintings.
The works are titled Philly and Philadelphia Soft and are 7’10” and 8’5″, exceeding the usual dimensions of prints.
Gilliam creates Custom Road Slide in 1977, a series of fourteen ephemeral outdoor ‘constructions’ of fabric, wood, shale and pigment, installed along 400 yards of shale cliffs lining the Niagara Gorge near Niagara Falls. Gilliam enjoys working outside as the varying and unstable conditions offer amply opportunity for meticulous problem solving, a common trait throughout his practice.
In 1979, Gilliam purchases a building at 14th and U Streets, NW with fellow Washington Color School painter Rockne Krebs (pictured) as the artists’ joint studio space. After Gilliam received funding from the Washington Gallery of Modern Art, he first establishes a studio with Krebs in 1968 at 1737 Johnson Avenue, NW, which provided working space for other artists as well.
1980
Entering the 1980s, Gilliam continues to develop large-scale, public commissions, including Dupont Circle Grand (1980) at the Dupont Circle Metro Plaza in Washington D.C., Sculpture with a D (1982), at the Davis Square Subway Station in Sommerville, Mass.. Other public commissions include Wave Composition (1980), Box Cars Grand (1980), Delta Wave (1981), and Tholos Across (1981).
In 1982, curator and director of the Studio Museum in Harlem, Mary Schmidt Campbell opens Red & Black to “D”: Paintings by Sam Gilliam (November 16 1982– February 7 1983), Gilliam’s second solo institutional exhibition in New York. The same year, back in D.C., Gilliam receives the Mayor’s Art Award for the District of Columbia. Gilliam and his wife Dorothy separate.
While Gilliam becomes more active in lobbying for the rights of artists in D.C., he teaches painting at the University of Maryland College Park from 1982 to 1985. He then joins the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, from 1985 to 1989, where he spends much of his time but does not relocate. In 1989, Gilliam receives a National Endowment for the Arts Individual Grant and retires from full-time teaching.
1982
‘Red & Black to “D”: Paintings by Sam Gilliam
Red and Black to D opens at the Studio Museum in Harlem on November 16 1982, organized by curator and Studio Museum director Mary Schmidt Campbell. For Gilliam, the exhibition marks a return to stretched canvas and a refocus monochromatic painting, exploring the colors red and black specifically for this exhibition, through shaped canvas, layered collage, and a deep investigation of a single hue.
Schmidt Campbell writes, “Whereas the Red and Black paintings were intense, the D paintings were more playful. Full of colour, smaller than the red or black paintings they bore metal D shapes protruding from the bright surfaces” (Sam Gilliam, Phaidon, 2024).
Artworks include Cartouche (1981), Lion’s Rock Arc (1981), Elm (1981), To Miró — to Birds (1982), MacArthur award-winning scholar Kellie Jones, in the early stages of her career, researches and compiles the chronology for the catalogue.
Gilliam unveils Sculpture with a D (1982), commissioned by the Boston Mass Transit Authority, for the Davis Square Subway Station in Sommerville, Massachusetts, marking the first of his works to incorporate metal supports.
In 1983, Gilliam meets Annie Gawlak, a curator and art consultant based in Washington, D.C., with whom he begins a relationship with in 1986. An artist herself and former director of Middendorf Gallery in D.C., throughout their forty-year-long relationship, Gawlak champions Gilliam and becomes his trusted thought partner.
1986
Abstraction/Abstraction
Gilliam is invited to present a solo exhibition at Carnegie Mellon University Art Gallery, in Pittsburgh, where he is also a faculty member. He requests that other artists be invited to participate in the exhibition, resulting in the group show, Abstraction/Abstraction, which includes Emily Cheng, Sharon Gold, Jonathan Lasker, Kathleen Montgomery, Michael Mulhern, David Reed and Stephen Westfall.
In May of 1986, Gilliam gives the Commencement speech at the Memphis School of Art, ‘The Transformation of Nature through Nature’. The speech is republished multiple times.
Gilliam continues to work with printmaker and photographer Bill Weege, now at Tandem Press, in Madison, Wisconsin. Gilliam and Weege collaborate over many years, with Gilliam visiting the printshop every summer with his daughters. Together they experiment with innovative techniques and Gilliam produces large-scale prints.
1990
Entering the 1990s, Gilliam has retired from teaching and his three children grown and out of the house. Having just received an NEA grant, for the first time, Gilliam works full-time as an artist, continuing to experiment with printmaking and developing large-scale public commissions.
In 1990, he creates a large-scale print, Of Fireflies and Ferris Wheels (c. 1990), which exhibits internationally throughout the decade. He unveils several major large-scale commissions, including Jamaica Center Station Riders, Blue (1990), at the Jamaica Center train station in Queens, NY and Dihedral, which opens at LaGuardia Airport in Queens, NY, in 1996.
Gilliam also mounts solo museum exhibitions during the 90s, including Sam Gilliam at the American Craft Museum in New York (1991); Sam Gilliam: Construction at the Speed Art Museum (fka J.B. Speed Memorial Museum) in Louisville (1996), and Sam Gilliam in 3-D’, Kreeger Museum in Washington D.C., his first solo museum exhibition in D.C. since 1983.
Gilliam worked closely with his collaborator, master printer William Weege at Tandem Press to create Of Fireflies and Ferris Wheels (c. 1990), a new large-scale print. The work is printed on pelon fabric and spans 100 yards.
In 1991, Of Fire and Ferris Wheels is first presented at the Walker Hill Arts Center in Seoul, Korea. The contemporary art center is a predecessor of Art Center Nabi, a now defunct art museum focused on digital art. The work then visits Helsinki, Sweden, where it is presented as part of the in the Arts America Program at the United States Information Agency in 1992.
Perhaps one of the most breathtaking examples of the relationship between Gilliam’s works and their surrounding architecture, Of Fireflies and Ferris Wheels: Monstery Parallel sees the work installed in the Kunstmuseum Kloster Unser Lieben Frauen in Magdeburg, Germany during the spring of 1996, pictured here.
As an artist with critical success and an established reputation, both nationally and internationally, Gilliam receives honorary doctorate degrees from Northwestern University, University of Louisville, the Corcoran Gallery and School of Art, American University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and University of Tampa.
Throughout the decade, Gilliam continues to produce public commissions on a massive scale.
In 1991 Gilliam completes Jamaica Center Station Riders, Blue, commissioned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Arts for Transit commissions a new work by Gilliam for the Jamaica Center train station in Queens, NY. The work is a large, aluminum sculpture of geometric shapes painted in primary colors, mounted high outside on a wall above one of the entrances.
Gilliam’s commission for the La Guardia Airport in Queen’s New York is unveiled in 1996. Dihedral (pictured) is comprised of polychromed aluminum suspended on aircraft cables, and measures some 80 feet long and 30 feet high: the shape suggests the form of a bird or an airplane’s cockpit.
Commissioned by the Art in Architecture Program for the Fine Arts Collection of US General Services Administration, Gilliam completes Color of Medals in 1998, installed at the Philadelphia Veterans Administration. The work features multiple hinged panels in addition to shapes and colors inspired by iconography drawn from historical military medals.
2000
During the early 2000s, curator Jonathan P. Binstock develops Sam Gilliam: A Retrospective, a major survey of Gilliam’s work accompanied by a catalogue with a substantial essay penned by Binstock, charting his deep impact on the development of post-war abstract art. The exhibition travelled to the Speed Art Museum, the Telfair Museum in Savannah Georgia, and the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston.
2010
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2020
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