Sam Gilliam

Sam Gilliam: The Last Five Years presents a suite of works created by the late artist in the final years of his life, exhibited by Pace Gallery in New York and David Kordansky Gallery in Los Angeles.

These iconic tondos, Drapes, and beveled-edge paintings demonstrate Gilliam's unflagging commitment to transforming the relationship between paint and canvas. With extensive photography and foldouts and an essay by art historian Lowery Stokes Sims that traces the development of the artist's practice, this volume offers an all-encompassing look at these dynamic, vibrant compositions and the singular man behind them.

One of the most celebrated figures in post-war American art, D.C.-based painter Sam Gilliam pioneered a new course through abstraction with a variety of forms, moods, and materials, like the beveled-edge canvas, which he first created in the late 1960s, and his canonical Drape series. With experimentation as his only constant, he continued to develop and transform his practice all the way up until his death in June of 2022.