Clyfford Still

One of the first American abstract artists, Clyfford Still was the central figure of the New York School of Abstract Expressionism. The style at the origins of which he stood became the leading art movement in the United States, from the 1940s to the 1960s, until it was supplanted by Pop art and Minimalism that were more positive, understandable to the masses.

At the age of 20, Clifford Still arrived in New York to study painting but stayed in the city for less than two weeks. Disappointed with contemporary art and condemning the commercial approach to painting, the artist left for the West, where he graduated from university and worked as a teacher. Only in 1945 he returned to New York and stayed this time there much longer. Together with Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman, the artist founded the school of Colour field painting, which was based on the use of large planes of a uniform colour.

Still’s works are recognizable for their large scale, and his unique style consists in the use of heavy impasto, a dramatic and contrast combination of colours, the sharp border between which has a torn jagged shape. In his work, the artist managed to combine the brightness of the colour field painting and the expressiveness of the action painting; this became a unique feature of Still’s art.

Despite the fact that he is considered one of the founders of Abstract expressionism, the artist did not refer himself to this movement. He preferred to stand apart, did not participate in joint exhibitions and other events. Still had a complex character and came into conflict with art dealers and colleagues; this is probably the reason why his name is not so well known, although his contribution to avant-garde art is almost the most serious and fundamental.

Key ideas:

– Clyfford Still was the first American Abstract artist. He completely stopped using recognizable objects in his painting a few years earlier than Pollock and Rothko – they continued to paint in a spirit close to Surrealism and Expressionism until the early 40s, while the first abstract works of Clyfford Still date back to 1938. He was also the first to use large canvases without frames, arguing that restricting a picture by any frames is simply blasphemy.

– The artist’s childhood passed in the northern states of the USA and Canada. These calm and sparsely populated places influenced the art of Still: in his paintings, there are no real objects, but the artist’s love for endless expanses and monolithic planes is felt. Many viewers compare his colour spots to dark caves or abysses that take you into the canvas. Other connoisseurs see flashes of fire or lightning in the artist’s paintings. One way or another, these associations with the powerful forces of nature indicate the deep essence of painting, which comes from ancient masters and is reflected in the canvases by Clyfford Still.

– The central theme of Still’s work is the existential struggle of the human spirit and the inexorable powers of nature. Two opposites, expressed in contrasting colour combinations, embody this struggle. On the canvas, they do not merge and do not flow into each other but are in opposition, creating a physically noticeable tension and enormous energy.

– Unlike his colleagues, Newman and Rothko, Still used thick paints, which he applied on the surface of the canvas using a palette knife. Thanks to this heavy impasto, the colours in the artist’s paintings seem deep, vibrant and flickering. In some pictures, there is an illusion that some colours are below the others, and the artist partially removed the top layer of paint to expose them; although upon closer examination it turns out that this is not so.

– Despite the absolute innovation of his works, Clyfford Still did not accept and did not like modern society. He did not want to depict the contemporary reality of that time, because he simply did not find anything interesting in it. The artist said: “Our century is the century of science, mechanization, power and death. I don’t see anything good in nourishing its immense arrogance with arts.”