| One of the leading figures of the Abstract | | | | irregular, they look like flashes of colour that vary in |
| Expressionism movement in art, Clyfford Still was born | | | | shades giving the viewer the impression that one layer |
| on November 30, 1904 in Grandin, North Dakota. Still | | | | of colours has been torn off the canvas to reveal the |
| completed his education in art from Washington's | | | | layer beneath. For this purpose, Still used thick impasto |
| Spokane University. Following stints of teaching at the | | | | to create subtle shades across the painting. This style |
| Spokane Art Centre during the Great Depression, and | | | | can be seen in some of his most important paintings, |
| at Washington State University, he founded the | | | | named after the year they were painted; '1957-D No. 1', |
| Nespelem Art Colony along with Worth Griffin in 1937 | | | | '1953' and '1964'. In the latter, the painting is chiefly |
| to bring out portraits and landscapes depicting Native | | | | consists of the colours black and yellow with patches |
| American life in the Colville Indian Reservation. | | | | of white and a little red. These have been the colours |
| Following two exhibitions in San Francisco and New | | | | generally used in all of Still's paintings. |
| York in the 1940s, Clyfford Still's first solo exhibition in | | | | Still took up a teaching job at the California School of |
| 1943 did not showcase his characteristic style that | | | | Fine Arts, San Francisco, in 1946 before heading to |
| would form another dimension of Abstract | | | | New York City in 1950. In 1959 he held an exhibition at |
| Expressionism - colour field painting. Still later became | | | | the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York. |
| one of the foremost colour field painters, a style he | | | | The exhibition met with a positive reception prompting |
| developed after he met Abstract Expressionist Mark | | | | him to donate 31 paintings to the Buffalo Fine Arts |
| Rothko following his first solo exhibition. It was Rothko | | | | Academy. Still insisted that the paintings be never |
| who introduced Still to Peggy Guggenheim in New | | | | loaned out, clearly showing him to be particular in the |
| York. Guggenheim gave him a second solo exhibition in | | | | way his works are shown. |
| 1946 at her Art of This Century gallery. It was this | | | | In 1960 Still decided to cut himself off from the world |
| exhibition that truly introduced Still and his mature style | | | | of art when he moved away from New York City in |
| to the world. | | | | to his farm near Westminster, Maryland. He went on |
| Still wasn't alone in experimenting with colour, Mark | | | | to hold solo exhibitions in Philadelphia in 1963 and New |
| Rothko and Barnett Newman also organized colours, | | | | York in 1969-70. A permanent installation of his works |
| but in relative simple patterns. Still's style concerns with | | | | opened at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Arts |
| juxtaposing colours in different forms. Unlike Rothko | | | | in 1975, and in 1980 he was given an exhibition by New |
| and Newman, Still's arrangements of colour are | | | | York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. |