Softly Still

Sam Gilliam, who was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, as one of eight children, began painting at an early age. After attending the University of Louisville (receiving a BA and MA in Fine Arts) and teaching art in the Louisville public schools, Gilliam relocated to Washington, DC, in 1961. There, he was influenced by the Washington Color Painters, including Morris Louis and Gene Davis, who from the mid-1950s created abstract canvases based on color relationships. Gilliam became well known for the direct immediacy of his experimental paintings and watercolors, which explored patterns of color on folded paper and canvas at a time when Pop Art, Minimalism, and Conceptual art dominated the New York art world.

Gilliam gave the AMAM this major work three years after he was invited to Oberlin in March 1970 as an artist-in-residence. Softly Still is one of his classic "Draped" paintings. These radically innovative works liberated the canvas from the realm of easel painting, fashioning them into free-form installations. Gilliam soaked a canvas in brilliant pinks, greens, reds, and yellow-orange, and, draping the whole over a wooden sawhorse, created a piece that resonates with poetic harmony. Each time the work is placed on view, it takes on a slightly different form and appearance. The five yards of canvas that Gilliam used to create Softly Still are bulky and difficult to manipulate. Ironically, when the work is installed, it creates a monumental sculpture with a great sense of weightlessness. The sawhorse itself references the mass- produced tool used by carpenters, but Gilliam made this one himself.