Skip to main content

Sewell Sillman Art

American, 1924-1992
Sewell Sillman was born October 24th, 1924 in Savannah, Georgia. Before entering college, he served with the United States infantry in Europe in World War II and was wounded in combat. Shortly after the war, he enrolled at the experimental Black Mountain College in North Carolina, where he studied with Josef Albers, the abstract painter and theoretician. When Albers accepted a post at Yale, Mr. Sillman followed, receiving a B.F.A. degree in 1951 and an M.F.A. in 1953. In 1956, Sillman organized an exhibition of Albers’ work for Yale’s new art gallery and in the catalogue used two original screenprints from his mentor’s Homage to the Square series. From this experience grew a collaboration, not only with Albers, but with fellow faculty member and graphic designer, Norman Ives; jointly they issued Interaction of Color—1800 portfolios of eighty screenprints by Albers which became a seminal thesis on color theory. Established in 1962, the firm of Ives-Sillman produced portfolios and prints for other artists such as Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden, Roy Lichtenstein, and Walker Evans. A second major Albers work, "Formulation and Articulation," was produced in 1972 in collaboration with Harry N. Abrams Inc. Described as a quiet man who valued his privacy, Sillman was also a dedicated and demanding educator. Between 1963 and 1965, he taught at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, and after his departure from Yale in 1966, held positions at the Rhode Island School of Design, the State University of New York at Purchase, Ohio State University, and the University of Pennsylvania. Sillman’s work was widely exhibited during his lifetime and is represented in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and Whitney Museum of American Art. At the age of 67, Sewell Sillman died of cancer at his home in Lyme, Connecticut in April, 1992.
to
2
1
Overall Width
to
Overall Height
to
3
2
1
3
3
2
2
2
2
2
3
7,787
4,999
2,504
1,373
2
3
Artist: Sewell Sillman
"Green" Sewell Sillman, Op Art Abstract Blue And Green Geometric Composition
By Sewell Sillman
Located in New York, NY
Sewell Sillman Green, circa 1958 Acrylic on masonite 21.5 x 28 inches Upon attending Black Mountain College in Asheville, North Carolina, Sewell Sillman’s life was arguably altered...
Category

1950s Abstract Sewell Sillman Art

Materials

Masonite, Acrylic

I-S #1 /// Abstract Geometric Sewell Sillman Screenprint Purple Pink Modern Art
By Sewell Sillman
Located in Saint Augustine, FL
Artist: Sewell Sillman (American, 1924-1992) Title: "I-S #1" *Signed and dated by Sillman in pencil lower right Year: 1968 Medium: Original Screenprint on unbranded heavy white wove ...
Category

1960s Abstract Geometric Sewell Sillman Art

Materials

Screen

"Red" Sewell Sillman, Geometric Abstraction, Op Art, Red Colorist Composition
By Sewell Sillman
Located in New York, NY
Sewell Sillman Red, circa 1958 Acrylic on masonite 18 x 36 inches Upon attending Black Mountain College in Asheville, North Carolina, Sewell Sillman’s life was arguably altered for...
Category

1950s Abstract Sewell Sillman Art

Materials

Masonite, Acrylic

Related Items
Abstract Expressionist Painting American Late 1970's Mid Century Pink Blue White
Located in Buffalo, NY
Mid Century Modern, American Abstract Expressionist Painting on artist board. This wonderful work combines delicate shades of pink and blue and comes house in a contemporary natural...
Category

1970s Abstract Expressionist Sewell Sillman Art

Materials

Masonite, Acrylic

Ampersand (&) Abstract Geometric Silkscreen on Handmade Kenzo Paper
By William Katz
Located in Surfside, FL
Screenprint printed in black and white on handmade oatmeal paper. Signed, dated and numbered in white pencil. Date and name lower right, Signed and numbered edition of 85 from ARTISTS PORTFOLIO, a limited edition series of five prints in support of the dance company of Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane & Company. The other four artists who contributed were Robert Longo, Keith Haring, William Katz and Gretchen Bender. Bill Katz was born in New York, studied at The Art Students League and with Sebastiano Mineo of New York City. He was the studio assistant to Robert Indiana for more than a decade, initiating and arranging print projects for the artist, including Numbers (1968), with poems by Robert Creeley.For five years he worked and lived in the home that was once occupied by the great American sculptor Gutson Borglum. He also spearheaded the project of the cover artwork at Chanterelle with the full roster of distinguished contributing artists, photographers, musicians, and writers — Marisol, Chuck Close, Jasper Johns and Robert Mapplethorpe. Almost all the images were made specifically for the menus In addition, some of the images were made for one night special events, such as annual benefits held for the Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane Dance Company. He also Curated for the Fisher Landau Center for Art, Painting and Sculpture, Selections from the collection, which included work by Carl Andre, Willem de Kooning, John Duff, Robert Indiana, Neil Jenney...
Category

1980s Abstract Geometric Sewell Sillman Art

Materials

Lithograph, Screen

Abstract Expressionist Painting American Late 1960's Mid Century New York Blue
Located in Buffalo, NY
Mid Century Modern, American Abstract Expressionist Painting on Masonite. This wonderful work in hues of blue comes house in a contemporary natural wood frame presentation.. The ar...
Category

1960s Abstract Expressionist Sewell Sillman Art

Materials

Acrylic, Masonite

Homage to the Square - P2, F24, I2
By Josef Albers
Located in Long Island City, NY
"Homage to the Square - Portfolio 2, Folder 24, Image 2" from the portfolio “Formulation: Articulation” created by Josef Albers in 1972. This monumental series consists of 127 origin...
Category

1970s Abstract Geometric Sewell Sillman Art

Materials

Screen

Abstract Expressionist Painting American Late 1970's Mid Century Orange Purple
Located in Buffalo, NY
Mid Century Modern, American Abstract Expressionist Painting on artist board. This wonderful work combines unique shades of orange yellow and purple and comes house in a contemporar...
Category

1970s Abstract Expressionist Sewell Sillman Art

Materials

Masonite, Acrylic

Abstract Expressionist Painting American 1960's Mid Century New York Colorful
Located in Buffalo, NY
Mid Century Modern, American Abstract Expressionist Painting on Masonite. This wonderful work in exciting colors is housed in a contemporary white wood frame presentation.. The art...
Category

1960s Abstract Expressionist Sewell Sillman Art

Materials

Masonite, Acrylic

Abstract Expressionist Painting American 1960's Mid Century New York Colorful
Located in Buffalo, NY
Mid Century Modern, American Abstract Expressionist Painting on Masonite. This wonderful work in exciting colors is housed in a contemporary white wood frame presentation.. The art...
Category

1960s Abstract Expressionist Sewell Sillman Art

Materials

Masonite, Acrylic

Untitled
By Richard Pousette-Dart
Located in Miami, FL
Acrylic on masonite. This is a pivotal work in deep and radiant cobalt blue from 1950. It dipicts calligraphic and hieroglyph structures over a grid and pyramidal base by the first generation abstract expressionist. Provenance: Skinner: November 13, 1992 [Lot 00219}, The entry in the Skinner catalog indicates that the painting came directly from the artist to the family of the consignor to Skinner. Kaminsky Auctions. There is an unbroken paper trail that traces the ownership of the painting from the current owner, through two auction houses to the artist. Perfect unbroken provenance. Pousette-Dart was among the most inventive of the Abstract Expressionist generation, His uncanny talent was to expand the nature of abstraction and still make each mark each element very much his own; a reflection of what he called   "the concealed power of the spirit," he said, “not of the brute physical form."   His was not aiming for a singular, realized aesthetic formula but to expand the possibilities of painting; the transcendental in painting. Typical of such invention and exploration is this  painting  Untitled 1950 when the artist was only 34 years old and represented by one of the champions of the new American painting, Betty Parsons.  
A banner year for Pousette-Dart, the Museum of Modern Art acquired their first painting by the Minnesota born artist.  He worked on easel size works such as this painting an oil on masonite. At the same time Pousette-Dart was also working on larger scale works such as Path of the Hero, running over ten feet in length now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Both contain fields of color articulated by a highly sophisticated white hieroglyphic vocabulary. Rather than demonstrate an expressionist sensibility, Pousette-Dart harnesses his more cerebral ideas transforming thick areas of paint into a more refined composition of geometric forms akin to the pattern and forms of say a stained glass window. In a way he is looking back at Fugue, 1940 a black and white composition which makes use of a similar format of painting albeit smaller. Color and form are minimal, but what Pousette-Dart has maximized is the rhythmic and syncopated character of painting casting his ideas into purely symbolic terms that one might link to the pictograms of Adolph Gottlieb. Nonetheless, nature is always at the core of Pousette-Dart’s thinking and dreaming. Here he has transformed the local Ramapo Mountains—where he will eventually move with his family to live and work— into a complex series of articulated fragments linked by style, scale and color.  The painting’s imagery built on two large triangles and reduced to just two colors, cobalt blue and white all outlined in black.  Pousette-Dart symbols stacked in horizontal and vertical rows:  blue is ground, white is language, symbolic of light, consciousness and awareness . The painting maintains a mystical character images compounded that formulate a secret code and linked to the series of white paintings Pousette-Dart authored in the first half of the 1950s. Get up close to the picture and you discover images within images a kind of picture puzzle...
Category

1950s Abstract Expressionist Sewell Sillman Art

Materials

Masonite, Acrylic

'Cloisonné Abstract', Large Post-Impressionist Oil, Aptos, California
Located in Santa Cruz, CA
Signed lower right, 'C. S. Sanchez' for Clyde Sanchez (American, 20th century), and painted circa 1975; additionally signed, verso, with artist location, 'Aptos, CA'. A substantial,...
Category

1970s Abstract Sewell Sillman Art

Materials

Plaster, Masonite, Acrylic

The Investigation of the Investigation, abstract oil, bold colorful dots & grey
By C. Dimitri
Located in Brooklyn, NY
Oil, acrylic, resin on masonite
Category

2010s Abstract Expressionist Sewell Sillman Art

Materials

Resin, Masonite, Oil, Acrylic

Colorful Portrait Painting on Board by Peter Keil w Tiffany Blue Background
By Peter Keil
Located in Hudson, NY
This modern abstract painting by Peter Keil is on a smooth masonite board with a painted Tiffany Blue background, black abstract portrait. Here you ...
Category

Late 20th Century Abstract Sewell Sillman Art

Materials

Masonite, Acrylic, Board

Highland Figures, Abstract Expressionist Painting by John Kinnear c1960
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: John Kinnear, Canadian (1922 - 2003) Title: Highland Figures Medium: Acrylic on masonite, signed lower right Date: circa 1960 Image Size: 22 x 38 ...
Category

1960s Abstract Expressionist Sewell Sillman Art

Materials

Masonite, Acrylic

Sewell Sillman art for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Sewell Sillman art available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Sewell Sillman in screen print and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 1960s and is mostly associated with the abstract style. Not every interior allows for large Sewell Sillman art, so small editions measuring 28 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Peter Halley, Alexander Archipenko, and Georg Karl Pfahler. Sewell Sillman art prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $2,000 and tops out at $2,000, while the average work can sell for $2,000.

Recently Viewed

View All