One Painting at a Time challenges us to look beyond our first impressions and spend quality time with a single painting. The program departs from the idea that Clyfford Still intended his artwork to be open to interpretation and did not title his paintings. Each program is unique, with the format and conversation determined by the speaker, who has free rein to choose a painting from the 843 in the Museum’s collection. This session will be led by CSM’s Collections Curator and Catalog Raisonné Research and Project Manager, Bailey Placzek, Pam Skiles, Sr. Paintings Conservator, and Chief Conservator, James Squires, on PH-1125. They will speak on when a Clyfford Still painting is no longer a Still painting from conservation, art historical, and curatorial perspectives.
This program is included with admission, free for CSM members, and registration is required to attend in person at the Clyfford Still Museum.
Registration will open soon.
About Bailey Placzek
Bailey Placzek is the Clyfford Still Museum’s associate curator and research and project manager for Clyfford Still’s catalogue raisonné. She has been engaged in CSM’s curatorial program and collections research since before the Museum’s opening in 2011. She has given numerous talks at CSM—including The Secret Lives of Clyfford Still’s Paintings (2022)—as well as at various local and national conferences like the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) and the National Art Education Association (NAEA). Other curatorial projects include Clyfford Still, Art, and the Young Mind (2022), A Decade of Discovery: Clyfford Still in Denver (2021–22), and Still: Elemental (2019). Placzek’s work is focused on advancing access to collections, promoting art’s ability to foster connections among humanity across time, and deconstructing museum work to make it more transparent, collaborative, and fun. Placzek received dual BA degrees in Art History and Art from the University of Kansas and a MA in Art History from the University of Denver.
About James Squires
James Squires is the chief conservator at the Clyfford Still Museum. He first began conservation work on the Museum’s collection in 2010 as the Associate Conservator of Paintings for the Clyfford Still Museum and Denver Art Museum. In 2013, James moved to the Clyfford Still Museum full time to continue research, treatment, and preservation of the collections. James is also an adjunct professor at the University of Denver where he teaches a course on the conservation of cultural heritage. From 2001-2010, James co-managed the Atlanta Art Conservation Center, a satellite regional conservation laboratory of the Williamstown Art Conservation Center. Along with treating a variety of paintings, James lectured about conservation and promoted heritage preservation efforts throughout the Southeast.
About Pam Skiles
Pam Skiles is the senior paintings conservator at the Clyfford Still Museum and Denver Art Museum. She has co-authored a paper on Still, “Analysis of Modern Paints and Conservation at the Clyfford Still Museum,” and co-presented that work at the Conference on Modern Oil Paints at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. She has further engaged with the art conservation field by serving as an officer for the Paintings Specialty Group of the American Institute for Conservation and several positions on the Board of Directors for the Western Association for Art Conservation. Skiles has an M.A. in art conservation from Buffalo State College, State University of New York, and a B.A. in the history of art from the University of Michigan. Her additional museum experience includes the Oakland Museum of California and Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, as well as working in a private conservation studio in Los Angeles.