Spirited Still
"I never wanted color to be color. I never wanted texture to be texture, or images to become shapes. I wanted them all to fuse into a living spirit." —Clyfford StillThe painting's crusty surface evokes a sense of the earth as rugged and rich. The color black used so effectively here had special significance for Clyfford Still: "Black was never a color of death or terror. I think of it as warm and generative." The work's title strikes a documentary note; Still named his paintings by year and letters of the alphabet to indicate the order in which they were made.
1946-H (Indian Red and Black) is on view at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden's Clyfford Still exhibition through September 16, 2001.
Source: Modernism & Abstraction: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (exhibition text, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 1999).
Pictured: Clyfford Still, 1904–80, 1946-H (Indian Red and Black), 1946, oil, 78 1/4 x 68 3/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase from the Vincent Melzac Collection through the Smithsonian Institution Collections Acquisition Program.
"I never wanted color to be color. I never wanted texture to be texture, or images to become shapes. I wanted them all to fuse into a living spirit." —Clyfford StillThe painting's crusty surface evokes a sense of the earth as rugged and rich. The color black used so effectively here had special significance for Clyfford Still: "Black was never a color of death or terror. I think of it as warm and generative." The work's title strikes a documentary note; Still named his paintings by year and letters of the alphabet to indicate the order in which they were made.