Sam Gilliam

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courtesy MMoCA

Installation view of "RECOLLECT: Sam Gilliam."

Installation view of "RECOLLECT: Sam Gilliam," Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, 2023.

media release: MMoCA will present RECOLLECT: Sam Gilliam, an exhibition reflecting on the innovative work of the internationally recognized artist and his impact on the development of Madison’s creative culture.

The Mississippi-born Gilliam was an abstract artist originally associated with the Washington Color School of the late 1950s and the 1960s. Artists aligned with this movement were known for staining their canvases with color so as to emphasize a painting’s two-dimensionality. Gilliam was recognized as the first artist to remove the wooden stretcher bars that determined the shape of his paintings, thereby allowing his vivid, color-stained canvases to hang, billow, and swing through space.

Guided by stories shared by those who knew Gilliam, RECOLLECT: Sam Gilliam is a meditation on individual and extremely personal ties to the artist and his works. On View August 10, 2023–March 3, 2024 • Henry Street Gallery

Sam Gilliam: Abstraction and Innovation Beyond the Color Field and the Color Line

Saturday, January 27 • 2 PM • Lecture Hall • Free Admission

A scholar and artist, Dr. Freida High Wasikhongo Tesfagiorgis is UW-Madison Professor Emerita, Departments of African American Studies, Gender & Women’s Studies, and Art. She will speak about a group of Black artists from the American South, including Sam Gilliam, who turned to abstraction in the post-World War II era amid cultural and social issues and change.

Learn more about this talk at mmoca.org/gilliambeyond.