Detail View: Clyfford Still Archives:

CPSA.SB007.B001.F018.002

Handwritten accession record for the exhibition "Paintings by Clyfford Still", San Francisco Museum of Art, California, March 2-21, 1943

after 1982

Still, Patricia

10 1/2 x 8 inches (26.67 x 20.32 cm)

graphite pencils

paper

handwriting

Clyfford Still Museum

per Art International May/June 1982 / Hopkins did not tell me of the presence of this list in his files

1943 Exhibition / SF Mus of Art Accession files / list of works

1 The Green Wing / 2 722 Figure in Black + White / 3 723 Two heads / 4 724 Premonition / 5 725 Forms in Blue 7 / 6 726 Green Wheat / 7 727 Figure on Blue Denim 23 / 8 728 Yellow Pelvis 17 / 9 729 Forms with Yellow Line / 10 730 Form with Green Head 15 / 11 731 Figure in Line / 12 732 Man with Sheaf 6 - PH-209 / 13 733 Figures in Red + Black / 14 734 The Yellow Plow 8 PH-934 / 15 735 The White Place / 16 736 The White Hand 9 PH-932 / 17 737 Figures in Red + Black / 18 739 Night / 19 740 Forms 19? / 20 741 Man with Orange Lily 25 / 21 742 Form in White 12 / 22 743 The Yellow Elevator / 23 744 Prairie Winter 2 / 24 745 Freight Leaving Town 1 / 25 746 The Snow Plow 3 / 26 747 Mrs. Earle Blew / 27 748 Mr. Hargroves / 28 749 Miss Garske / 29 750 The Sculptor, Mr. Pritchard 18 / 30 751 Wife of the Artist / 31 752 Self-Portrait

This handwritten list of titles and accession numbers reflects Patricia Still’s attempts to identify the artworks exhibited in “Paintings by Clyfford Still” at the San Francisco Museum of Art in California. On view March 2 through March 21, 1943, the retrospective featured a selection of figurative and abstract paintings that spanned the early years of Still’s career. In the list of paintings initially submitted to the museum, the artist provided titles for the ten “portraits and landscapes” and twenty-two “less realistic pictures”; however, because Still later disregarded titles in favor of a coded numbering system, it is difficult to determine which titles were associated with each painting. In the upper right corner of the page, Mrs. Still refers to Stephen Polcari’s article “The Intellectual Roots of Abstract Expressionism: Clyfford Still”, published in the May/June 1982 issue of Art International Magazine, as the source of the titles that appear in this document. Polcari derived them from the museum’s accession files, which contain the list of titles submitted by the artist himself. Mrs. Still was apparently not aware of the existence of this information until the publication of the article, as indicated by her note concerning the museum’s director, Henry Hopkins. Alongside her reproduction of Polcari’s list, Mrs. Still links certain artworks to the corresponding numbered entries from the typewritten catalog of the exhibition. These identifications are not necessarily accurate because Polcari’s record differs from the artist’s original document. Even with the recovery of Still’s list, a complete record of the paintings included in the exhibition is impossible to determine with absolute certainty due to Still’s departure from descriptive titling of his artwork. While the accompanying installation photographs serve as visual records that confirm the majority of the paintings presented in Still’s first significant one-person exhibition, not all of the artworks were photographed, or have since been lost, destroyed, or otherwise undocumented.

Handwritten accession record for the exhibition "Paintings by Clyfford Still", San Francisco Museum of Art, California, March 2-21, 1943. Courtesy Clyfford Still Archives

Courtesy the Clyfford Still Archives

creation

Tiff

Clyfford Still Museum

CSM Archival Collection: Objects

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Assistant Archivist