I just found this when trawling the web and had to share it with you.
The flurry of jagged forms across this mural-sized painting seems to flutter and mesh at the same time. With its massive scale and brutal fracture of blacks and reds and tiny flames of yellow and magenta at the periphery, the canvas appears formed more by the forces of nature than by pictorial logic.
So I just spent a week or so as the involuntary guest of the government of a small Balkan country. They were rash enough to allow me the use of a set of watercolors.
Those who haven’t much experience with painting might not know this, but watercolors are actually the hardest kind of paint to master. That free, spontaneous look they have? Takes a ton of planning, practice, and “saving whites”. Oils are a cinch by comparison. With oils, you can scrape off your mistakes before they dry.
Anyway, here’s one of my prison paintings, entitled “Half-Assed Tribute to Clyfford Still”.
Half-Assed Tribute to Clyfford Still, by M.K. Hajdin
The photo quality is half-assed, too. Just to keep up with the half-assed spirit of things.
This is number 19 in the series. You can read the other posts here.
Clyfford Still famously wore a suit and tie under his painting smock, so this recently discovered photograph will surprise future scholars.
Mysterious
Instead of a suit, tie and smock, a strangely glowing shirt with words on it! What can we make of this mysterious message?
Sundays with Clyfford Still will return next week.
This is number 18 in the series. You can read the other posts here.
We are spirits in the material world: 1947-H no. 3 by Clyfford Still (Credit: SFMoMA)
In this piece about an upcoming exhibition at the Clyfford Still Museum that compares Clyfford Still with reproductions of Vincent Van Gogh, Judith Dobrzynski opines, “I think Still made a huge, egotistical mistake – preventing comparisons of works by other artists side-by-side doesn’t make him look better, it makes him look afraid. Wouldn’t this have been far more interesting if the van Gogh works were actually present, instead of there in reproductions?”
This is number 17 in the series. You can read the other posts here.
For this painting, I’d build a wall.
CSM – 4619 by Clyfford Still. Photo: Tiffany Weber
I am still in the process of researching this, but I will talk more about this painting and symbolism of birds in Clyfford’s work in future posts.
When I first saw CSM- 4619 I was immediately reminded of the song in the video clip below. (Read the Youtube comments; they’re surprisingly eloquent.)
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Leave a comment below, or tweet with the hashtag #clyffordlove.
This is number 16 in the series. You can read the other posts here.
Our last episode was a bit grim, so here’s a palate cleanser.
Clyfford Still did some realistic sketches of Indian people. Here they are, looking remarkably more cheery than most of his other work. And here’s a link to an article in the Denver Post about the new works in the Clyfford Still Museum. I’m not sure I agree with Rinaldi’s characterization of Still’s later works as a “decline”, or that “pretty” is an unworthy goal in art. I’ve always felt that to be an elitist opinion, but it would take an entire post of its own to explain why. Anyway, here comes the bright and cheery:
Sketches by Clyfford Still. Photo: Gary Regester
This is number 15 in the series. You can read the other posts here.
This week we go back to the early days of Clyfford Still, before his paintings progressed into complete abstraction.
Untitled Still from 1936. Photo: Tiffany Weber
A woman old before her time, a death’s head surfacing beneath her skin. A gaunt male figure is cradled on her lap, almost in a nursing position, but he seems too weary to take any nourishment and she is too empty to provide it. These starveling figures are eerily prophetic in the light of the concentration-camp images that would shock the world only ten years after this picture was painted.
Artists learn how to do art by reproducing what they see around them in a realistic manner. Once the techniques are mastered, many artists go on to use the techniques that they learned to interpret reality more imaginatively. Clyfford Still began on this path trod by so many others, but his originality soon surfaced, and drove him to be one of the first artists who abandoned reality altogether and plunged into complete abstraction. But what drove that process?
This is number 14 in the series. You can read the other posts here.
This week we’re looking at the lighter side of Clyfford Still. We don’t have any evidence that Clyffie himself actually possessed a lighter side, but a survey of popular culture reveals that one exists – created by other artists with a bit more humor and less paranoia.
Here is cartoonist Kenny Be’s vision of “Clyfford’s Color Fyeld Gryll”, which unfortunately never came to pass. Unfortunately, I say, because that “dyppying palette” looks pretty good.
This is number 13 in the series. You can read the other posts here.
This week we are looking at two views of 1950-A No.2 – one in a gallery setting and the other an extreme closeup. Close-up shots are great. You really learn a lot about an artist by the brush or knife marks on the canvas.
1950-A No.2 by Clyfford Still (center) alongside a Rothko. Photo: C-Monster
A lone black spot in the heart of the sun.
Detail from Clyfford Still’s 1950-A No. 2 by AlbinoFlea
While we’re on the topic of divergent views:
If you are interested in Clyfford Still’s early life, there are two posts on the Still museum’s blog about his mother and father, including this sketch done when Clyfford was only 26.
Sketch of Elmer Still by Clyfford Still. Photo: Clyfford Still Museum
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Bailey Harburg describes Still’s early life with his father. It’s pretty clear to me that there was child abuse going on, which is why I’m a little disturbed by these words: “However, Elmer’s unsympathetic attitude ultimately paved the way for Clyfford to brazenly navigate a similarly harsh art world.”
This sounds to me almost like a justification of child abuse, which I am sure Harburg did not intend. But just because Still was able to make his way in the art world (at least for a while, until he rejected it) does not mean that he somehow transcended his abuse, or even worse, that abuse somehow inspires people to overcome. Because this is a backhanded justification for abuse that even abusers use. Toughen up! It’ll make you a man! Et cetera. In response to the old cliche, “whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” the comedian Dennis Miller once remarked: “Whatever doesn’t kill you messes you up for a really long time, and you’re lucky if you ever get it together.”
I would disagree that the abuse Clyfford suffered held for him any kind of benefit. The damage done to his developing sense of self would later manifest in paranoia and a need control that sabotaged many of his relationships. The unyielding and uncompromising force of his personality kept him from being crushed by his past, but he and the people around him still paid a heavy price.
Still’s closest and most enduring relationships were with his wife and daughters – all women. He saw men as a threat, and that undoubtedly was caused by his troubled relationship with his father. He never had a son, but it is interesting to imagine what might have happened if he had. I suspect it would not have gone so well.
Still was a complex and deeply sensitive man who internalized some of the abuse he suffered as a child and turned it on some of his closest friends. It’s not necessary to justify this, or to smooth over his early life, to make him more sympathetic. Part of what makes Still so interesting is that he is often unsympathetic.
Exiled Stardust 