Sam I Am

Born on this day in 1933, Sam Gilliam is most widely known for his large color-stained canvases he draped and suspended from walls and ceilings during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Since that time Gilliam's style has undergone a number of phases, and he continues to explore new avenues of artistic expression.

Gilliam's "Wild Goose Chase" series includes this two-part ensemble, called Open Cylinder, an example of his "quilted" paintings produced during the late 1970s. After cutting geometric shapes from his thickly layered canvases, Gilliam arranged and glued these shapes to a canvas background in random patterns reminiscent of the asymmetrical "crazy quilts" made by African-American quilters of the Deep South, and the irregular patterns of West African textiles.

Source: Regenia A. Perry. Free within Ourselves: African-American Artists in the Collection of the National Museum of American Art (Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Art in Association with Pomegranate Art Books, 1992).

Pictured: Sam Gilliam, born 1933, Open Cylinder, 1979, oil, 81 x 35 1/2 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Albert Ritzenberg.