Biography

Sam Gilliam’s abstract paintings hang in museums ranging from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC to the Tate Gallery in London. In addition, he has numerous public installations, including work located at federal buildings in Atlanta, Detroit, and Philadelphia and airports in Atlanta, New York City, and Washington, DC. Other public places where his work is displayed range from the George F. Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco to the Broward County Government Center in Fort Lauderdale, FL.

Born in Tupelo, MS, Sam was educated at the University of Louisville, and he remains loyal to his Kentucky ties, dividing his time between Louisville and Washington, DC. He has served on the board of the Speed Art Museum and donated work for auction to U of L and the Louisville Visual Art Association, and he frequently returns to participate in Kentucky arts events and educational offerings. He was a 2000 recipient of the Kentucky Governor’s Award in the Arts.

Among numerous other awards, Sam has received a Guggenheim Fellowship; two National Endowment for the Arts Individual Artist Grants; the Norman W. Harris Prize from the Art Institute of Chicago; and honorary doctorates from Northwestern University and the Corcoran Gallery and School of Art as well as U of L.

Sam is a renowned member of the Washington Color School of painters and is known for innovations in taking the paint beyond the canvas, creating billowing fields of color and three-dimensional hinged images. Since 1965, he has mounted more than 20 solo exhibitions of his work at museums around the world, from the Speed and University of Kentucky museums at home in Kentucky to institutions in Seoul, Korea and Helsinki, Finland. Other museums with Sam Gilliam works in their permanent collections include the Art Institute of Chicago; the Smithsonian Institution’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, National Collection of Fine Arts, and Renwick Gallery in Washington, DC; the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City; the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh; and the Musee d’Art Moderne de le Ville de Paris, France.