By James O’Neil
One thing that I have always known was what I wanted to be and that is an artist to bring people the feeling of open mindedness or just pure happiness and through art I was able to do just that. And most people would tell me that it is not a traditional job, or I should be more realistic, but art is a job and does bring people together and makes people happy. The artist Sam Gilliam is a perfect example of someone who used art to make people happy. This man is the most internationally known contemporary African American color field painter; he is more widely known for his “large color-stained canvases he draped and suspended from walls and ceilings during the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, in 1933 and was the 7th of 8 kids. His dad was a railroad worker, and his mom was a stay-at-home parent. Gilliam started his painting career in elementary school, he recalls important encouragement and apparently a “Special Art Program” that he attended. In 1951 Gilliam graduated from Central High School in Louisville. “He attended the University of Louisville and graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in fine arts in 1955.” He has the same degree that I want to get when I graduate from college. And if that is not impressive enough, Gilliam served in the United States Army from 1956 to 1958, which is interesting to me considering that this is after he had his first exhibit in college. After being in the army he went to his home in Louisville and decided to put his degree to good use. “Gilliam initially taught art for a year in the Louisville public schools.” So, I assume he became an art teacher, but the article does not specify. “In 1962 he married Dorothy Butler, a Louisville native and a well-known journalist.” “The background for Gilliam's art was the 1950s, which witnessed the emergence of abstract expressionism and the New York School followed by Field Painting. “So, this is when he started to take his art career more seriously. “In the late 1950s until his first one-man exhibition in Washington in 1963 were primarily figural abstractions employing bold, dark colors of a brooding nature reminiscent of the works of German Expressionist Emil Nolde. “He soon realized that he could make a difference through art.
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