1943-A

1943
Not on view
From 1945 to 1961, Clyfford Still was a major member of the first-generation Abstract Expressionist painters in New York, though he created early abstractions such as 1943-A while still living in San Francisco and Richmond, Virginia. By eliminating all representational imagery and any sense of illusionistic space, he conveyed spiritual and metaphysical content—what he called "a living spirit"—in the jagged patterns of paint applied with a palette knife on solid color fields.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: 1943-A
  • Artist: Clyfford Still (American, Grandin, North Dakota 1904–1980 Baltimore, Maryland)
  • Date: 1943
  • Medium: Oil on cloth
  • Dimensions: 36 × 30 1/4 in. (91.4 × 76.8 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: Gift of Mrs. Clyfford Still, 1986
  • Object Number: 1986.441.1
  • Rights and Reproduction: © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
  • Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art

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