Clyfford Still Museum Extends Visitors One Last Chance to View Still’s Connection to Color in Red/Yellow/Blue (and Black and White): Clyfford Still as Colorist
Denver, CO –April 11, 2013– Due to high interest and continued demand, the Clyfford Still Museum will extend the popular COLOR installation by one week, an exhibition that explores the significance of color in the art of Clyfford Still. Red/Yellow/Blue (and Black and White): Clyfford Still as Colorist presents a selection of 32 major works by Still, nearly half of which have never been exhibited before. The works are arranged throughout five distinct galleries that correspond to each of the artist’s signature hues: red, yellow, blue, black, and white. Consistent with the museum’s mission to illuminate the legacy of Clyfford Still, Red/Yellow/Blue will offer a new perspective on the centrality of color in Still’s artistic trajectory, informing the artist’s singular contributions to the Abstract Expressionist movement. Curated by Clyfford Still Museum Director Dean Sobel, the exhibition will remain on view in the Lanny and Sharon Martin Galleries through May 19, 2013.
While all of the leading practitioners of Abstract Expressionism engaged with color at various points in their careers, many of the important masterworks of the movement—such as those by Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, and key series by Willem de Kooning and Barnett Newman—are notable for their lack of strong color in favor of the dualities of black and white. Still, too, explored the potential of limited color, but his greater interest in high-‐key color—particularly red, yellow, and blue—is unique among the artists of his generation and highly specific to his own practice. Still’s use of color also informs his artistic dialogue with Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman, his closest allies in the late 1940s.
The works displayed in the exhibition are organized across five galleries, each surveying the five colors that appear most prominently in Still’s work. Each gallery includes a range of works that encompass the full spectrum of Still’s artistic development, illustrating his early transition from figurative representations to Abstract Expressionism. Still’s distinct applications of color are apparent in very early works, such as PH-‐77, 1936 where both clothing and landscape are reduced to “primary” colors, as well as later abstract paintings like PH-‐31, 1951 and PH-‐247, 1951, which apply different color schemes to similar formal structures. Red/Yellow/Blue considers early portrait and figurative compositions in which single colors tend to pervade, such as the predominance of blues in PH-‐296, 1935. The exhibition also includes several works that have never been exhibited, such as PH-‐1107, 1951, in which Still applied the structure of an earlier drawing to a large-‐scale red canvas.
Special Exhibition Tours
Private tours of Red/Yellow/Blue will be offered through the exhibition dates of January 25th through May 19, 2013 by appointment. Maximum 30 guests. Please indicate preference of a Red/Yellow/Blue tour when scheduling. Tour fees include admission and are based on the type of group (senior, adult, or student). We require three weeks’ notice to schedule private tours, which are subject to availability.
To schedule your private tour or group visit, call 720-354-4877.
About The Clyfford Still Museum
The Clyfford Still Museum was founded to promote public and scholarly understanding of the late artist’s work and legacy, through the presentation and preservation of the Clyfford Still and Patricia Still estates, donated to the City of Denver in 2004 and 2005 respectively, and totaling approximately 2,400 artworks. Considered one of the most important painters of the twentieth century, Still (1904 – 1980) was among the first generation of Abstract Expressionist artists who developed a new, powerful approach to painting in the years immediately following World War II. The Stills’ estates—now understood to contain 94 percent of the artist’s total output—as well as his extensive archive, were sealed off from the public from 1980 to 2011.
The new museum is in the heart of the city’s Civic Center Cultural Complex. For more information about the Clyfford Still Museum, please visit www.clyffordstillmuseum.org, find us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.