Loving Lightly

Artist Sam Gilliam American, 1933–2022

Date1978–1979

MediumPaint, mixed media, and collage on canvas

Dimensions40 x 70 in. (101.6 x 177.8 cm)

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineGift of Mary and Jim Patton

Object number2015.29

On View

On view

Label TextIn 1962 Gilliam moved to Washington, DC, where he met an older generation of artists identified with the Washington Color School. Gilliam would become perhaps the most prominent artist of the succeeding generation to adopt their aesthetic of fluid, painterly improvisation and technique of pouring paint directly on canvas.

As one of the few Black abstract artists to be recognized at the same time as his white peers, Gilliam is known for his groundbreaking innovations of draping, cutting, and collaging canvas to create dynamic abstractions. Loving Lightly dates from a period in the late 1970s during which he experimented with cutting canvases into geometric shapes and reassembling them into new compositions.
[L. Dougherty, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," 2022]ProvenanceCreated Washington, D.C., 1978–1979; collection of the artist; [Middendorf/Lane, Washington, D.C.]; Mary and James R. Patton Jr., Great Falls, VA, 1979; given to NCMA, 2015.Exhibition HistoryWashington, DC, Middendorf/Lane, "Sam Gilliam: New Work," April 1979.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, permanent collection installation, December 7, 2015–November 13, 2017.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," October 7, 2022–present. Object Rights Statement

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