Denver, CO – March 18, 2024 – The Clyfford Still Museum (CSM) named Molly Warnock the Director of the Clyfford Still Catalogue Raisonné Project. She will oversee the writing and editing of the Clyfford Still Catalogue Raisonné of the Complete Works and related research, curatorial, and publishing initiatives. Warnock is an internationally recognized scholar of modern and contemporary art.
Clyfford Still Catalogue Raisonné of the Complete Works is a comprehensive collection of all known works with full details including title, dimensions, creation date, medium, provenance, exhibition, and publication history. This major scholarly project will present Still’s entire body of work for the first time, including paintings, works on paper, sculptures, and lost works. The Museum will announce the publisher of the project at a later date.
Clyfford Still, one of the leading first-generation artists of the Abstract Expressionist movement, created nearly 4,000 works of art in his 60-year career. After the artist died in 1980, the Clyfford Still Estate was sealed off from public and scholarly view. In 2004, Still’s wife, Patricia Still, selected the City and County of Denver to receive the substantial Still collection. In 2005, Patricia Still also bequeathed to the city her own estate, which included select paintings by her husband and his complete archives. The Museum opened in 2011, and the CSM launched the multi-year catalogue raisonné project in 2018 after completing the initial inventory of the Museum’s entire collection, which includes 93% of everything the artist ever created.
CSM knows of roughly 256 Still works held in other public institutions or private collections, and unknown parties hold 35 works. To locate and verify information for the works held outside of the Museum, CSM launched a call for submissions from owners or representatives who have not responded to the Museum’s request for information in 2019. The call for submissions continues, and individuals may submit works for consideration in the catalogue at clyffordstillmuseum.org/cr.
In addition to Warnock serving as the director, Bailey H. Placzek is the research and project manager. Placzek is the curator of collections at the Clyfford Still Museum and engaged in the inventory and documentation of every work in CSM’s collection since before the Museum opened its doors.
About Molly Warnock
Molly Warnock is the author of the monographs Simon Hantaï and the Reserves of Painting (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2020) and Penser la Peinture: Simon Hantaï (Gallimard, 2012), she has written widely on modern and contemporary art for, among other journals, Artforum, Art in America, Les Cahiers du Musée National d’Art Moderne, Tate Papers, and Journal of Contemporary Painting, as well as for numerous exhibition catalogues. She has also edited four volumes for the Transatlantique collection (ER Publishing) on Martin Barré, Simon Hantaï, James Bishop, and Michel Parmentier. Currently, she is the director of the Clyfford Still Catalogue Raisonné Project at the Clyfford Still Museum.
About the Clyfford Still Museum
Designed by Allied Works Architecture to display the art of one of the 20th century’s greatest artists, the Clyfford Still Museum opened in November 2011 in Denver’s Golden Triangle Creative District. Considered one of the most important and mysterious painters of the 20th century, Clyfford Still (1904-1980) was among the first generation of abstract expressionist artists who developed a new and powerful approach to painting in the years during and immediately after World War II. The Museum’s collection represents more than 93% of the artist’s lifetime output. As the steward of Still’s art and legacy, the Museum’s mission is to preserve, exhibit, study, and foster engagement with its unique collections; generate outstanding exhibitions, scholarly research, educational and other cross-disciplinary programs that broaden the definition of a “single-artist” museum; and be a gathering place for the exploration of innovation and individual artistic endeavor. Connect with the Clyfford Still Museum on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, or at clyffordstillmuseum.org.
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