The African-American abstract painter Sam Gilliam, known for his colorful canvases left free from the frames on which they are usually attached, died Saturday at the age of 88, announced Monday two galleries having collaborated with him.
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The artist, born in 1933 in the state of Mississippi, was the first African-American to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale in 1972. He died at his home in Washington from kidney failure, according to the
New York Times
.
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“
Sam Gilliam was one of the giants of modernism
,” said Arne Glimcher, the founder of the Pace gallery, quoted in the press release.
“
Sam embodied a vital spirit of freedom, obtained with courage, ferocity, sensitivity and poetry
,” added David Kordansky, patron of the gallery of the same name, which has two addresses in New York and Los Angeles.
“1968 was a year of revelation and determination.
Something was floating in the air and it was partly in this spirit that I painted Les Drapés.
»
Sam Giliam
It was at the end of the 1960s that Sam Gilliam, who had already painted his colored forms on folded canvases before stretching them on their stretchers, produced some of his most emblematic works, the "
Drapes
", by completely ridding his canvases from their wooden supports to let them fall freely from the ceiling or the walls.
“
These groundbreaking works changed the history of art
,” wrote a college of renowned gallerists.
Then they added as a tribute: “
Gilliam has transformed the medium of the painting and its relationship to the spatial and architectural context in which it is seen.
»
Quoted in the press release announcing his disappearance, Sam Gilliam explains that
“1968 was a year of revelation and determination.
Something was floating in the air and it was partly in this spirit that I painted
Les Drapés
.”
Finally, for those who want to or rediscover the work of Sam Gilliam, three of these paintings are currently on display at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, in Paris, as part of the exhibition
"La Couleur en fugue"
, until August 29, 2022. .