Sills Art Visible Again

Sill was in the circle that included abstract expressionist de Kooning and color field painter Barnett Newman. He had little formal education, artistic or otherwise. He painted luminous abstracts in a strong, simple and clear manner, without affectation or artifice. His images often consist of floating clouds, scaffolds or jigsaw patterns of phosphorescent color, saturated with tangy, tropical harmonies of citron, lime, peach, cinnabar and turquoise. Arrayed on a wall, they almost seem to emit light - punching the eye with a spicy jolt of chromatic pleasure. Sills life had a fairy-tale quality. He was the son of North Carolina sharecroppers. While working as a liquor-store deliveryman in New York's Greenwich Village, he met an married a wealthy artist, collector and socialite. His works are collected by more than 25 museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The first posthumous exhibition is being held in Cleveland, USA at Corcoran Fine Arts. More than anything, it shows that Sills' work is worthy of greater attention. While his paintings have been widely collected, they haven't been visible in decades. For the full story - click the title Irish Art