Catch Sam Gilliam at the Park Ave. Winter Show Jan. 24-Feb.2, 2020

First Work by a Major Living Artist to Debut at The Winter Show in New York City The 1970 painting by Sam Gilliam (b. 1933) represents an early breakthrough in the artist’s quest to separate painting from its confining two-dimensionality

Sam Gilliam Ray VI, 1970 Acrylic on canvas; 51 1/4 x 108 1/4 inches; Unframed

January 2020 (New York) –– Gerald Peters Gallery will exhibit Sam Gilliam’s Ray VI (1970) at The Winter Show, held at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City from January 24-February 2, 2020. The work, representing an early breakthrough in the artist’s sculptural experiments with canvas, has been in a private collection since it was acquired in the early seventies. The Winter Show recently extended its datelines, offering visitors an opportunity to consider art-historical connections from antiquity through the present day. “We are delighted to present Sam Gilliam’s Ray VI at The Winter Show,” says Alice Levi Duncan, Senior Director of Gerald Peters Gallery in New York City. “We have long admired Gilliam’s work and have been pleased to see appreciation for this important American artist grow in recent years. With its longstanding focus on American art, the Show is the perfect place to debut Ray VI, and we are excited for visitors to glimpse a masterpiece that has been out of sight for decades.” Sam Gilliam completed Ray VI in 1970, one of a series of Ray paintings that he produced that year. The title of the series––like many he used––is descriptive and refers to the “rays” of color that radiate from the lower register of the canvas and characterize each work in this series. He exhibited selections from the Ray series in 1972 in a one-man exhibition at the Jefferson Place Gallery in Washington, DC. The painting––and the series as a whole––exemplifies Gilliam’s slice, or beveled-edge, paintings. As Jonathan P. Binstock has described, the “slice paintings represented Gilliam’s first breakthrough, his first signature style.” He began working with beveled-edge canvases in 1967. It was a conceptual first step in separating painting from its confining two-dimensionality, a process that would culminate, a few years later, in his drape paintings. As Binstock notes, the specially made stretchers of the slice paintings create “the impression that the [works] are emerging from the wall as objects of weight and structure.” Indeed, in describing his work from this period, Gilliam has explained: “The surface is no longer the final plane of the work. It is instead the beginning of an advance into the theater of life.” The slice paintings are raw canvas and acrylic paint mixed with water-tension breaker. The process by which Gilliam made them was physical and more akin to the fabrication of a sculpture than to the traditional painting process: … he began by soaking and splattering the lightest colors of the composition…, keeping in mind the spaces he wanted to leave white, light, or empty of color. He then applied the darker hues, glazing over the earlier, lighter layers, much as [Morris] Louis had done. The canvas was then folded back and forth on itself and left to dry in a heap on the floor. When the work was still in a pile, Gilliam often applied paint one last time to its exposed surface area, to give it texture and punctuate the composition in ways that only became known to him later, when the work was spread out and examined. (Binstock) Only after the paint had dried and the compositions were complete did Gilliam stretch the canvases onto beveled stretchers, maintaining, in their final form, a sculptural element. Gilliam has described the process in geological terms: “The pouring and the folding, the separation of the paint and the liquid, together with the sprinkling of the canvas when folded all led to this effect of sedimentation. But when you unfolded the painting on the floor, it was a sheet, and these processes created a rhythm.” This rhythm––in color and in form––is the defining aspect of Gilliam’s slice paintings, and, indeed, of Ray VI. As his friend, curator Walter Hopps, has described: “In much of Gilliam’s most powerful and beautiful work there exists a delicate balance between improvisation and structure, a sense of chaos controlled.” GENERAL INFORMATION Sam Gilliam (American, b. 1933), Ray VI, 1970 Acrylic on canvas 51 1/4 x 108 1/4 inches Signed and titled on verso: Ray VI / Sam Gilliam / 48 x 108 [with the 4 overlaying a 5] Unframed On view at Gerald Peters Gallery, Booth D15 The Winter Show January 24-February 2, 2020 643 Park Avenue Armory New York City ABOUT Gerald Peters Gallery With locations in New York City and Santa Fe, Gerald Peters Gallery specializes in American paintings and sculpture from the 19th century through the present. gpgallery.com The Winter Show The Winter Show is the leading art, antiques, and design fair in America, featuring 72 of the world’s top experts in the fine and decorative arts. Held at the historic Park Avenue Armory in New York City, the fair highlights a dynamic mix of works dating from ancient times through the present day and maintains the highest standards of quality in the art market. Each object at the fair is vetted for authenticity, date, and condition by a committee of 150 experts from the United States and Europe. thewintershow.org #fineartmagazine#wintershow#geradlpertersgallery