Clyfford
Still (1904-1980)
1957-D, No. 1 1957
Oil
on canvas, 113 x 159" inches
Albright-Knox
Gift
of Seymour H. Knox, 1959
Clyfford Still
was something of a maverick in the art world. In many cases, he
disdained or was infuriated by anyone who tried to interpret his
work, including art critics, art historians, patrons, and museum
curators. His attitude about art and artmaking was romantic and
passionate, and he did not believe that most people understood
or properly appreciated his work.
Born in North Dakota in 1904, Still spent time in California and
New York before settling in Maryland to live and work. In so doing,
he rejected the politics of the New York art scene, which for the
first time in history had become the international center of the
art world.
Still painted
large abstract canvases with much impasto (thick, textural paint)
and vertical, jagged bolts of colors. The flame-like patches of
color are often cut off at the canvas edges, making viewers think
that the forms continue beyond what they can see. Although his
early work includes figurative paintings and landscapes, Still
has denied that these have any connection or relevance to his mature,
signature images. Instead, he has said, "Each painting is
an episode in a personal history, an entry in a journal," and "My
work in its entirety is like a symphony in which each painting
has its part." The titles of his paintings, which contain
dates, letters, and numbers that signify the order in which they
were created, support this explanation.
Still wanted his paintings to be under his own personal control,
and did not like them separated from one another or exhibited with
other artists' work. He felt that his paintings could only be understood
as part of a whole, with the whole being the evolution of his entire
life's work. This obsession with maintaining absolute control resulted
in his rejection of offers to buy his paintings, refusing awards
and honors, and declining invitations to exhibit both in individual
and group shows.
Gordon Smith,
who was the director of the Albright Art Gallery (renamed the Albright-Knox
Art Gallery when the 1962 addition was completed) from 1955-1973,
along with the Gallery's important patron Seymour H. Knox, worked
hard to win Still's trust and finally convinced him of their sincere
interest in his work. Still allowed them to purchase two paintings,
and agreed to a rare retrospective exhibition that opened at the
Gallery in 1959. Pleased with Buffalo's reception of his work,
in 1964 Still donated thirty-one paintings to The Buffalo Fine
Arts Academy, the parent organization of the Albright-Knox Art
Gallery. According to the terms of the gift, the paintings must
be shown in their own room, all of the time, and never loaned to
other museums. (This latter condition was set aside on one occasion
by Still's widow.) The Clyfford Still Room at the Gallery is an
awe-inspiring experience that foreshadows the art form known as
installation, where the artist creates an environment for the viewer
to enter.
Currently, 750 oil paintings and more than 13,000 works on paper
by Clyfford Still are in storage in Maryland, awaiting an individual
or institution to fulfill the terms of his will. It stipulated that
they be installed in a museum built to his specifications and exhibited
under his terms, never to be "sold, given, or exchanged."
— Mariann Smith
