Painter Sam Gilliam, Celebrated for His Boldly Colored Draped Canvases, Has Died at 88
The abstract painter died at his home in Washington, D.C.
Sam Gilliam – November 30, 1933 – June 25, 2022
(Dogon V, 2005 – Intaglio Lithograph)
(Sam Gilliam’s work Yves Klein Blue at the Venice Biennale in 2017.)
Sam Gilliam loved Yves Klein.
I first encountered Yves Klein while stationed with the army in Japan. There was a Klein exhibition in Tokyo. The Gutai group was being born, and I was in the army, and I thought nothing about whether I would be an artist or not. In fact, I probably thought that I would never be an artist. But Klein had an effect on me, and I thought about making art beyond the interiors that it is usually presented in, about making art more in the outside world.