1000 Museums

Born in 1933 in Tupelo, Mississippi, Sam Gilliam is a celebrated African American color field painter and lyrical abstractionist artist. In the 1950s and 1960s, Gilliam was involved with the Washington Color School, a group of Washington, D.C. area artists that developed a form of abstract art from color field painting. Gilliam works on stretched, draped and wrapped canvas, adding sculptural 3D elements.