Clyfford Still, PH-191, 1951. Source
A cracking new post about Clyfford Still over at Abstract Critical:
“We should not be surprised then, that many of the best Stills can feel closed in, have dark and earthen tones, and are marked by that ubiquitous “lifeline,” and yet suggest a transcending power and vitality…”
— Ken Carpenter
Solent Saturday by Sue McDougall
I liked the unusual composition and meditative colors of this piece by Sue McDougall.
Sue also writes about women artists. Click here to visit her blog.
Wall of Ice by M.K. Hajdin
So if you are on tumblr and you like art and you like this blog, why not follow me?
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.
Wave Breaking, Morning by Maggi Hambling (credit: artnet.com)
Wave by Maggi Hambling
I envy this brushwork by Maggi Hambling. Also the energy and texture. Go look at her website right now. (It gives me a bunch of errors but the two paintings I was able to see were totally worth it). Here’s the wiki about her with some interesting biographical details.
This is number 11 in the series. You can read the other posts here.
Illusions, in one form or another, have been the recurring theme of the blog this week, so it’s only fitting to end it with some words about finding truth.
1965 (PH-578) by Clyfford Still (Photo: The Daily Artist)
I hold it imperative to evolve an instrument of thought which will aid in cutting through all cultural opiates, past and present, so that a direct, immediate, and truly free vision can be achieved. (Clyfford Still)
This is number 10 in the series. You can read the other posts here.
1950-M No.1 by Clyfford Still
Jagged orange stalagmites are submerged in a blue haze that turns them violet, as if we have stepped into a cave in the gloaming, or are underwater.
The best works are often those with the fewest and simplest elements… until you look at them a little more, and things start to happen. — Clyfford Still
This is number 9 in the series. You can read the other posts here.
It’s Easter, which in most religions is about celebrating new life. Let’s hear what Clyfford had to say on the subject:
Untitled by Clyfford Still (late 1970s)
These are not paintings in the usual sense; they are life and death merging in fearful union. As for me, they kindle a fire; through them I breathe again, hold a golden cord, find my own revelation.
— Clyfford Still
On a blinding white background flame spirits leap and flicker and cool as they sink toward the bottom of the painting.
This is number 8 in the series. You can read the other posts here.
Untitled, Clyfford Still, 1974. Photo credit: SFMoMA
A howling grey wind in a night that has swallowed all color. We’re just fragments of red, yellow, blue and white, engulfed in infinite darkness.
“I will always represent a one-man war against the abdication of individual will [institutions] usually demand, and the confusion of purpose they introduce, since power is basic to their survival… We can never meet except in a state of armed truce.”
Clyfford Still, from letter to Dorothy Miller, July 15, 1952.
Exiled Stardust 