Prints
Sam Gilliam, Untitled, 1997
Lithograph, handmade paper, and collé, 21½ x 22 in., edition of 50
Price
$1,000 CAA individual and institutional members
$1,750 Nonmembers
Framed (maple cap with natural finish)
About the Work
Sam Gilliam’s print is an original mixed-media construction that demonstrates the exceptional care in the selection and production of materials and the playful yet sophisticated sense of color and composition that enliven so many of his works. The work marks a return for Gilliam to the medium of paper, which he extensively explored during the 1970s. Untitled comprises several handmade elements, including a gestural pulp painting unique to each number in the edition. The image of the stamped relief printing that occupies the lower-right portion of the piece derives from a previous work, adding another layer of reference. Other segments are made of custom watermarked, handmade Japanese prints. The combination of these elements creates a work in which the hand of the artist is ever present, and the intimate relationship between artist and work is preserved.
Gilliam was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, and educated at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. Gilliam moved further north to Washington, DC, to launch his career in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when he garnered much recognition for his “suspended paintings.” These draped works liberated the canvas from the frame and challenged the customary separation between sculpture and painting. In the 1980s, Gilliam received a series of major public commissions, including one for the Boston Transit Authority, for which a large sculptural mural was created and installed at the Davis Square station. Success accompanied Gilliam into the 1990s and 2000s. In 2005–6, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, hosted Sam Gilliam: A Retrospective, the most recent survey of the artist’s work. The show traveled to the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, the Telfair Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia, and the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston, Texas.
Gilliam was actively involved in the preliminary stages of establishing CAA’s Professional Development Fellowship Program, which financially assists graduate students in their final year of study. In 1996 he served a visual-artist juror for this program. Gilliam was also a member of CAA’s Board of Directors from 1986 to 1989.