Artist: Sam Gilliam
Title: Untitled (Purple)
Year:1996
Medium: Original Mixed Media on Paper
Size: 11" × 14"
Inscription Front: Signed and dated lower left edge, "Sam Gilliam 96"
Inscription Verso: Signed, dated, and inscribed verso, "for Necia – Sam '96"
Documentation: Includes Gallery Certificate of Authenticity
This 1996 work by Sam Gilliam is a mixed media composition on paper, executed in a palette dominated by purple tones. Measuring 11 × 14 inches (28 × 36 cm), it bears the artist's signature and date on the lower left edge, with an additional dedication inscribed on the verso (for Necia – Sam '96"). The piece exemplifies Gilliam's continued engagement with abstraction in the 1990s, reflecting his lifelong experimentation with color, surface, and spatial dynamics.
Gilliam's oeuvre is characterized by a deep exploration of color relationships and compositional rhythm. In works on paper from this period, he often combined layers of pigment and drawing media, creating a textured, dynamic surface that responds to both light and movement. These pieces extend the vocabulary he developed in his Drape Paintings of the 1960s and 1970s, translating his interest in suspended, unstretched canvases into smaller-scale, intimate formats. The fluidity of his media and the interaction of color and form invite close inspection, revealing subtle variations in tone, density, and gesture across the surface.
Gilliam's works, including mixed media pieces such as this, are represented in major international collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art; the Smithsonian American Art Museum; the Tate Modern, London; and the Art Institute of Chicago. These institutions underscore the critical and historical significance of Gilliam's contributions to postwar American abstraction.
Sam Gilliam's Untitled (Purple) 1996 Mixed Media comes from the collection of a close personal friend of the artist and is accompanied by a gallery Certificate of Authenticity.
About Sam Gilliam
Sam Gilliam stands as one of the most influential figures in postwar American abstraction, recognized for expanding the possibilities of color and redefining the painted surface. Born in Tupelo, Mississippi, in 1933 and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, Gilliam pursued formal training at the University of Louisville, where he earned both undergraduate and graduate degrees in fine art. After moving to Washington, D.C. in 1962, he became loosely aligned with the Washington Color School, but his artistic trajectory quickly moved beyond the group's focus on hard-edge and stained canvases.
Gilliam's most significant innovation emerged in the late 1960s with his Drape Paintings, which transformed the traditional canvas into an immersive, three-dimensional form. By soaking raw canvas in acrylic paint and then suspending or folding it into space, Gilliam eliminated the stretcher altogether, allowing the work to hang freely like cloth. These radical interventions were both painterly and sculptural, situating Gilliam at the forefront of a dialogue between painting, installation, and performance. His work mirrored the energy and upheaval of the Civil Rights era while contributing to international discussions of modernism and abstraction.
Throughout the following decades, Gilliam continued to reinvent his practice, exploring beveled-edge canvases, thickly encrusted surfaces, and collaged forms. His restless experimentation demonstrated a refusal to be confined by a single style, marking him as an artist deeply invested in pushing the boundaries of abstraction.
Gilliam's art is held in major collections worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and the Tate Modern. His groundbreaking inclusion in the 1972 Venice Biennale as the first African American artist to represent the United States marked a turning point in art history, affirming his central role in shaping the trajectory of contemporary painting. Gilliam's legacy lies not only in his formal innovations but also in his demonstration that abstraction could be both aesthetically radical and socially resonant, securing his place as one of the foremost American painters of the twentieth century.
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