Hard At Work At 84, Artist Sam Gilliam Has ‘Never Felt Better’

Sam Gilliam found inspiration for his signature artworks in an unlikely place — a clothesline. In a Washington, D.C., studio that was once a drive-through gas station, the 84-year-old artist works surrounded by yards of vividly-painted fabric, hung like laundry from a line. The sheer, silky polyester puddles to the floor, catching light on the way down. The idea, he explains, is “to develop the idea of movement into shapes.”

Over the decades, Gilliam’s made plenty of other artworks — black paintings and collaged pieces — but it’s the 3D draping that made his name in the 1970s, and is getting renewed attention now.

Back then, “it was in the air,” Gilliam says. Jackson Pollock and others had been dribbling, spraying, pouring paint onto canvases spread on the floor. Then they picked up the works, and framed them. Gilliam’s big idea was to eliminate the frame and hang his radiantly painted cloth in graceful free falls.