Collection 1950s–1970s

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Sam Gilliam. 10/27/69. 1969 490

Acrylic on canvas, 140 x 185 x 16" (355.6 x 469.9 x 40.6 cm). Sam A. Lewisohn Bequest (by exchange)

Artist, Sam Gilliam: A friend of a teacher of mine teased me about having the paintings on the floor to paint them and not resolving them in terms of that. And that's where the drape paintings came from.

This was made flat, and as the colors were poured onto the painting, they gathered, they collected at one point, where through gravity there was a puddle. And that overnight they would bleed all to this, these sort of low points where the heaviness of the paint would collect. And I think that this was the most important thing that started to happen is that I could paint and go away. And that overnight, the surprise of the painting would be formed.

I had been criticized as a black artist for never sort of seeing "the cause" or for painting abstraction, or painting white people's paintings and things like this, you know. And I decided to...to show them. To do this, with all the paintings, had a lot of meaning, you know, had a lot of directness.

Narrator: Years later, when Sam Gilliam was asked how abstract art could be political, this is what he had to say.

Sam Gilliam: It messes with you. It convinces you that what you think isn't all. It challenges you to understand something that is different, opposed to what you believe. I mean, just because art looks like something that, that, that resembles you, doesn't mean that you have understanding. Why not open up?