Skip to main content

Clyfford Still

Composition

[vers 1945]

Clyfford Still
(1904, États-Unis - 1980, États-Unis)

Composition

[vers 1945]

"These aren't paintings in the usual sense, they are lite and death merging in fearful union." (Still)


From 1945 onwards, Clyfford Still reduced his vocabulary to jagged forms that gradually increased in size until they covered the whole of the canvas. ln this painting, one of his earliest abstract work, two irregular white shapes cleaved in two by yellow lines are held in tension by strong red colours. The areas of heavy impasto made with a palette knife lend an archaic and dramatic character to the artist' s paintings, which he described as "wounds" or "crevasses" and as being of "the Earth, the Damned and the Recreated".

Domain Peinture
Techniques

Huile sur toile

Dimensions

115,1 x 84,5 cm

Acquisition

Achat de l'Etat, 1973
Attribution, 1976

Inventory no. AM 1976-1023

On display:

Museum, level 5, walkway 1


Artist Clyfford Still
(1904, États-Unis - 1980, États-Unis)
Main title

Composition

Creation date

[vers 1945]

Domain Peinture
Techniques

Huile sur toile

Dimensions

115,1 x 84,5 cm

Acquisition

Achat de l'Etat, 1973
Attribution, 1976

Collection area

Arts Plastiques - Moderne

Inventory no. AM 1976-1023

External links

La collection du Musée national d’art moderne