Artistic visionary Clyfford Still was born on November 30, 1904 in Grandin, North Dakota. Though he studied fine art extensively at both Spokane University in Washington and Washington State University, Still’s true artistic vision began to shape while he was a teacher. While teaching art at Washington State University (1935-1941), his paintings were mostly figurative, though expressive in nature. Still turned more to the abstract in the late 1930s, and while teaching at California School of Fine Arts from 1946 to1950, his style matured into his famous abstract expressionist style.

Still’s artistic career took off during one of his extended stays in New York. Contemporary and friend Mark Rothko introduced Still to Peggy Guggenheim who gave him a solo show at her Art of This Century gallery in 1946. When Still moved to New York in the 1950s, he was at the forefront of the Abstract Expressionist movement with contemporaries like Mark Rothko, Philip Guston, Franz Kline, and Jackson Pollock. Though he was influential to the art scene, Still thought it needlessly frivolous and decadent, and he eventually severed all his ties with galleries and contemporaries. In 1961, he moved to a farm in Maryland where he remained until his death in 1980. Because Still was notoriously finicky about the collection and exhibition of his works, many of his paintings still remain unseen by both the public and scholars. In 2010, a museum dedicated to Still opened in Denver, Colorado, which boasted 2,400 previously unseen works.

Still is known as one of the pioneers of the Abstract Expressionist movement and one of the foremost Color Field painters. Eschewing the figurative and choosing to paint jagged flashes of juxtaposing colors set Still apart. Still once said of his work, “I never wanted color to be color. I never wanted texture to be texture, or images to become shapes. I wanted them all to fuse together into a living spirit.”