1975-J no.2 Vandalized
On November 18, 2011, the Clyfford Still Museum was founded in Denver, Colorado. On December 29 of that same year, just over a month later, one of his iconic paintings hanging in the museum was deliberately vandalized.
Clyfford Still
Before we get into the case I’d be remiss not to tell you about the artist at the center of it. Clyfford Still was born on November 30, 1904, in Grandin, North Dakota. He grew up in Washington as well as spending some time in southern Alberta before studying fine art in New York at the Art Students League. He attended Spokane University, graduating in 1933 and then obtained a Master of Fine Arts from there as well, graduating in 1935. In 1941 Still relocated to San Francisco and he had his first solo exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Art (now the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) in 1943. He taught art, first at Spokane before his relocation, then at Virginia Commonwealth University.
In 1943, while living in California, Still met Mark Rothko who introduced him to Peggy Guggenheim who gave him a solo exhibition at her gallery, The Art of This Century Gallery, in New York in 1946. The next year Guggenheim closed her gallery and Still, along with other abstract expressionists, joined the Betty Parsons Gallery.
Following this, Still returned to San Francisco where he became a highly acclaimed professor at the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute), teaching there from 1946-1950. In 1950 he moved back to New York City, this guy moves a LOT, where lived for most of that decade in the height of abstract expressionism. It’s worth noting that he is considered one of the leading figures in the first generation of abstract expressionists. However, the 50s weren’t all rosy for Still, he started growing increasingly critical of the art world and started severing ties with commercial galleries.
In 1961, he moved to a 22-acre farm near Westminster, Maryland using a barn on the property as his studio in the warmer months. He lived in Maryland until his death in 1980 when he was 75.
More about his art style, he developed his signature style (known as colour field) between 1946 and 1950. He was more concerned with juxtaposing different colours and textures in a variety of formations than creating figurative paintings. He was one of few painters who combined colour field paintings with a gestural, action-based technique. Diverging again from his peers, like Rothko and Newman who use thin paints, Still used thicker paint creating variety and the look of some layers of colour being almost ripped off the paintings.
The Clyfford Still Museum
So, knowing all of that you might be wondering why the Still Museum is in Denver when Still was born in North Dakota, lived in New York and San Francisco, and died in Maryland. Well, before he died, in 1978, Still wrote a will where he stipulated “I give and bequeath all the remaining works of art executed by me in my collection to an American city that will agree to build or assign and maintain permanent quarters exclusively for these works of art and assure their physical survival with the explicit requirement that none of these works of art will be sold, given, or exchanged but are to be retained in the place described above exclusively assigned to them in perpetuity for exhibition and study” (Van Dyke, 2011). Upon his death the city hadn’t been chosen yet so all 2400 of his remaining works were sealed off from public and scholarly access for over 20 years. His wife was 16 years younger than him so she had some time to make a decision about where the museum should be.
In August of 2004, the city of Denver, Colorado, announced that they had been chosen by Patricia Still to be the location of the Clyfford Still Museum. I tried to find out why she chose Denver and wasn’t able to, sorry about that. The museum purpose-built a modern building to house the 825 paintings on canvas and 1575 works on paper, as well as the complete archive of Still’s sketchbooks, notebooks, journals, and other material.
I’m sure you can now understand that when everything was built and installed and ready to be open in 2011 this was a big deal. These works hadn’t been seen publicly in over 20 years!
The Vandalism
On December 29, 2011, just over a month after the grand opening of the museum a woman entered the room where Still’s work titled 1975-J no.2 was hanging. Please keep in mind before you keep reading that this painting is valued between $30-40 million. Allegedly drunk, and for no apparent reason she walked over to the painting, initially just leaning on it (which in itself could do serious damage to the paint and the canvas). But then she punched and scratched the painting. Finally, she pulled her pants down, leaned her behind against the painting and slid down it, peeing.
She was obviously, immediately arrested.
It wasn’t clear at first if she had actually peed on the painting or not but upon inspection it appeared that she had luckily missed the canvas and just peed on the museum floor. When the canvas was examined they found that there was around $10,000 of damage done but nothing that couldn’t be repaired. Though, interestingly, Ivar Zeile, a gallery owner in Denver noted that even if the damage can be restored it can damage the piece just by being part of it’s history. “Whether the damage affects the painting’s value, however, depends on several factors, including whether it remains a museum piece or goes on the market. Sometimes such damage becomes part of piece’s history. It does damage the piece, though, even people just knowing that happened” (Bunch, 2012).
The offender was charged with felony criminal mischief and was sentenced to two years probation. Thankfully the painting was completely restored to its original glory and is back hanging in the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver, somewhere I’d now like to go!
Works Cited
Bunch, Joey. “Denver Woman Arrested for Punching, Damaging $30 Million Clyfford Still Painting”. The Denver Post. 2012. https://www.denverpost.com/2012/01/04/denver-woman-arrested-for-punching-damaging-30-million-clyfford-still-painting-2/
Van Dyke, Geoff. “Clyfford Still’s Unyielding Will”. 5280. 2011. https://www.5280.com/clyfford-stills-unyielding-will/