Sam Gilliam

Massive Sam Gilliam Work Seeks Record at Christie’s

October 25, 2018 by Marion Maneker

Christie’s catalogue for the Post-War and Contemporary Evening Sale is now online with some interesting revelations like Sam Gilliam’s Lady Day II from 1971 that carries a $1.5m low estimate. The massive 8-ft by 13-ft beveled work was once part of the Phillips collection, as was Forth which sold for £910k ($1.16m) in London at Sotheby’s in June, the current record price for the artist.

Gilliam’s market has been rising aggressively for the past several years helped along by an agenda setting show at Mnuchin Gallery one year ago and an influential show at Basel’s Kunstmuseum during Art Basel in June. Before that, buyers were snapping up better examples of Giliam’s work in regional auctions. Lady Day II was acquired by the current consignor in just the same way when it was sold at a local Washington, DC auction in 2003.

Christie’s is touting the canvas as a masterwork:

Painted in 1971, the same year Gilliam’s work was prominently featured in as solo exhibition, Projects: Sam Gilliam at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Lady Day II belongs to a series of works produced in the late 1960s and early 1970s that are among the artist’s most important paintings. Known as his Slice paintings, they have subsequently become some of his most admired and respected works; many similar examples are in major museum collections including, April 4, 1969(Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.); Whirlirama, 1970 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York); Wide Narrow, 1972 (Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University); Blue Twirl, 1971 (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.); and Scatter, 1972 (Indianapolis Museum of Art). Recently honored with a major retrospective exhibition at Kunstmuseum Basel (his first in Europe), Sam Gilliam is now regarded as one of the most respected painters of his generation.

This particular example is striking in its colors but also in the process that produced them:

“Passages of deep ruby red dissolve into areas of warm pink, before softening into more neutral organic tones; this is then repeated across the canvas in various combinations of other glistening tones of red, blue and yellow. This rich and variegated surface is the result of the artist repeatedly folding the canvas while the paint is still wet, allowing the colors and geometries to dissolve into each other. Gilliam would begin the process by soaking the lightest colors of the composition, like the yellows and pinks in the present work, into the raw, unprimed canvas before applying the darker greens, reds and blues. He would then fold the canvas repeatedly back and forth on itself before leaving it to dry overnight. As they were unfolded, the evocative abstract forms were revealed for the first time, appearing like mysterious Rorschach like forms embedded directly into the canvas.”

Mnuchin Previews Sam Gilliam for Art Basel

June 1, 2018 by Marion Maneker

Mnuchin Gallery has sent out their packing list for Art Basel which opens in Basel in two weeks. Mnuchin can be found at Booth F9 with works by Mark Bradford, Willem de Kooning, David Hammons, Joan Mitchell, Pablo Picasso, Robert Ryman, Sean Scully, Frank Stella, Rudolf Stingel, and Cy Twombly. (Click here to download their packing list.)

Coinciding with Sam Gilliam’s retrospective at the Kunstmuseum Basel, the booth will feature a group of works by the artist, including a special presentation of the vintage Drape painting, Patch, 1970 (above). Last shown at the Museum of Modern Art in 1971, and in the same private collection since then, this work will be unveiled for the first time in almost five decades.

Sam Gilliam Sales Up Ahead of Mnuchin Show

October 18, 2017 by Marion Maneker

Quietly and without much fanfare, the market for works of art by Sam Gilliam has been on fire. In the last month, three of his top 5 prices have been achieved, including a record set at $684,500 at Sotheby’s September 27th mid-season sale for Rays from 1971 which was estimated at $100-150k. Also in September, a DC auction house offered Fan Fire IV from 1970 with an estimate of 100-150k. The buyer took it home for $332,400. Earlier this month, Rubiyat from 1973 was offered at Swann’s with a more modest $60-90k estimate. It only took $191,000 to bring the work home that day.

The art market functions in mysterious ways but sales often increase in front of shows that are expected to have a strong effect on the artist’s prominence. It just so happens that Mnuchin Gallery’s Sukanya Rajaratnam has been putting together a show that opens in early November.

Here are some details from the press release:Continue Reading

Artelligence Podcast: Sam Gilliam Interviewed by Jonathan Binstock

May 17, 2017 by Marion Maneker

Sirius XM produced this interview between artist Sam Gilliam and Jonathan Binstock, the director of Rochester’s Memorial Art Gallery and a Gilliam scholar.

On the occasion of Gilliam’s return to the Venice Biennale 45 years after he represented the United States, this far-ranging conversation covers the artist’s entire career. Born in Louisville, Kentucky where Cassius Clay, Sr. (Muhammed Ali’s father) was a prominent painter, Gilliam encountered a European refugee Ulfert Wilke at the Louisville and became his studio assistant.

He also eventually encountered the Gutai artists in Japan, Bob Thompson and moved eventually to Washington, DC where Kenneth Noland was at the center of the Color Field movement and the city was “a town of connection.”

Throughout this conversation Gilliam talks of the lifelong struggle to make art and make a life as an artist. His career followed no clear trajectory but has been punctuated by encounters with an endless cast of 20th Century artistic influences culminating in his most recent turn in the center stage.

Listen Here>>>>

Second Chances for Artists in Venice

May 8, 2017 by Marion Maneker

The Wall Street Journal highlights some of the artists whose careers are getting a second look at Venice this year. For octogenarian Sam Gilliam, the return to Venice after half a century later comes at a time that his reputation and market are in recrudescence:

Along with giving younger artists their breakout moment, Venice gives curators a chance to validate older artists who may have been overlooked. Expect a reassessment of Irma Blank, an artist born in Germany in 1934 who now lives in Italy and is known for transcribing entire books and newspapers into slender script that’s unreadable—a gesture that turns language into line. Her dealer Alison Jacques said Ms. Blank will show some of her earliest pieces from the late 1960s. Sam Gilliam, a Washington-based painter, is also making a return appearance 45 years after he became the second African-American artist to show in the biennial. This time, his dealer Kurt Mueller said Mr. Gilliam is making a “spectacular” new painting that nods to his earlier Color Field breakthroughs.

The Olympics of the Art World (WSJ)