New Art in the Laurel Apartment
I’ve added four new artworks to the living area of the Laurel Apartment at Lesmeister Guesthouse. They are ink on canvas reproductions of oil originals created in the 1950’s by artist Clyfford Still.
I discovered Still’s work on a recent business trip to Denver, Colorado, and I really like his style! A billboard on the side of a building outside my downtown hotel window had a large photo of Still, and the words, “The canvas was his ally. The paint and trowel were his weapons. And the art world was his enemy.”
Now that caught my attention! I did a little research and discovered that Clyfford Still (born 1904, died 1980) was an American painter who was one of the leading figures in the first generation of Abstract Expressionists, who developed a new, powerful approach to painting in the years immediately following World War II. Still has been credited with laying the groundwork for the movement, as his shift from representational to abstract painting occurred between 1938 and 1942, earlier than his colleagues like Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, who continued to paint in figurative-surrealist styles well into the 1940s.
I found several Still works depicted online, and picked four I thought would go nicely together to create the new display in The Laurel.