Among the characteristics that define Clyfford Still’s art—dramatic textures, monumental scale, and jagged, vertical forms—perhaps Still’s use of color most contributes to a viewer’s experience of a particular painting or drawing. This large-scale exhibition is arranged among five distinct galleries, each devoted to one of Still’s signature hues: red, yellow, blue, black, and white.
While certainly all of the leading artists who were part of the abstract expressionist movement were involved with color at various points in their career, 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 black and white. Still’s use of color represents the many ways he influenced, and was in dialogue with, Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman, his closest allies in the late 1940s.
This exhibition is featured on Google Art Project:
Red/Yellow/Blue (and Black and White)
Curated by Director Dean Sobel