Apr 06, 2017 - Sale 2442

Sale 2442 - Lot 107

Price Realized: $ 37,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 35,000 - $ 50,000
SAM GILLIAM (1933 - )
Mess of Greens.

Acrylic on cotton canvas, 1968. 610x825 mm; 24x32 1/2 inches, with beveled edges. Signed, titled and dated in ink on the canvas overlap, verso.

Provenance: collection of the artist; Jefferson Place Gallery, Washington, DC (1969); the collection of Dolly Langdon and Aldus H. Chapin, Washington, DC.

Exhibited: Selections from the Dolly Langdon and Aldus H. Chapin Collection, Hemphill Fine Arts, Washington, DC, June 7 - August 2, 2014, with the gallery label, verso.

This subtly toned painting is an early example of Sam Gilliam's unique use of a beveled stretcher with his stained and folded canvas. According to Jonathan Binstock, by 1968 Gilliam used this device "to heighten awareness of his paintings' relationship to the wall and how the space shared by the view and picture figures into the experience of the art." Binstock p. 40.