6/23/2009:
North Dakota native Clyfford Still passed away on this day in 1980. Although little known amongst North Dakotans, Still's impact on the American art world was monumental, and he has been described by legendary art critic Clement Greenberg as "one of the most original and important painters of our time . . . more original than any other in his generation."
Born in Grandin, North Dakota, in 1904, Still's family later moved to Spokane, Washington. In 1926, Still began attending Spokane University. After graduation, the artist began an extensive teaching career at Washington State University; he would later teach in San Francisco, Virginia, and New York. Still spent many of his summers in New York, where he became associated with several artists of the new American movement of abstract expressionism, including Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. Today, Still is credited with "...laying the groundwork" of this movement from surrealism to abstraction; in fact, although the movement is considered to have originated in New York, Still preceded his contemporaries by nearly a decade, beginning this shift in his West coast work in the late 1930's. Still's work is defined by "abstract forms, expressive brushwork, and monumental scale, all of which were used to convey universal themes about creation, life, struggle, and death". These themes are believed to represent the "human condition", and became extremely important to artists working after World War II. Throughout his career, Still exhibited his work in dozens of renown galleries across the country, including Peggy Guggenheim's Art of this Century gallery, the Betty Parson's Gallery in New York, the California Palace in San Francisco, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1961, Still retired to his farm in Maryland. In 1972, the American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded him the Award of Merit in Painting.
Upon his death, it was learned that Still had retained 2,400 of his original works, amounting to nearly 94% of everything that he produced, and that the collection would go to any city that would maintain a permanent collection of the object. Denver won the competition. The Clifford Still Museum is currently under construction next to the Denver Art Museum, and is scheduled to open in 2010.
Dakota Datebook written by Jayme L. Job
Sources:
www.clyffordstill.net
www.clyffordstillmuseum.org