Awful Bigness

Clyfford Still spent his childhood and adolescence in the West and saw how the boundless plains could offer generous bounty in times of plenty or pitilessly starve in dust and wind. In an interview, he referred to that experience as one that taught him to respect the “awful bigness of the land, the men and the machines.” In subsequent years, he worked on an enormous scale, and each time, he had to confront the awful bigness of the vast expanse of blank canvas.

Organized by the Museum’s curator of collections, Bailey Placzek, in collaboration with CSM’s director, Joyce Tsai, Awful Bigness fills the Museum’s largest, skylit galleries and celebrates Still’s biggest, most ambitious works. This installation follows a chronological display of Still’s works in CSM’s first four rooms, which overviews Still’s groundbreaking path to abstraction.

Digital Guide + Audio Content

Enjoy more ways to connect to the collection and our Museum with the new Clyfford Still Museum mobile guide, available on the free arts and culture app Bloomberg Connects, available via Google Play or the App Store. Scan the QR code to download Bloomberg Connects and find CSM’s digital guide. Use the guide while you explore Awful Bigness and hear a variety of perspectives on the exhibition’s themes. Audio guide speakers include Dr. Danielle Ignace, assistant professor in the Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver; Dr. Rob Landis of NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office at NASA headquarters in Washington D.C.; Susannah Drake, architect, landscape architect, and CSM’s president of the board of directors; and a student from Denver School of the Arts.