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The oldest Jewish home in America open to the public as a museum offers a glimpse of the life of an early 19th century merchant family.
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With an extensive collection of more than 106,000 rare and unique volumes relating to the history of art, the Jean Outland Chrysler Art Library is one of the most significant art libraries in the South. More about the library

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Perry Glass Studio

A state-of-art facility on the Museum’s campus. See a free glassmaking demo Tuesdays–Sunday at noon. Like what you see? Take a class with us! More about the Studio

Moses Myers House

The home of the first permanent Jewish residents of Norfolk, this historic house offers a glimpse of the life of a wealthy early 19th-century merchant family.
More about the house

Jean Outland Chrysler Library

With an extensive collection of more than 106,000 rare and unique volumes relating to the history of art, the Jean Outland Chrysler Library is one of the most significant art libraries in the South. More about the Library

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The perfect place for your big day or special event. Get the details

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Jean Outland Chrysler Library

Visit one of the most significant art libraries in the South. More about the library

About the Chrysler

Our story spans well over 100 years. See where we began, how we grew, and where we're going. Explore our history

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745 Duke Street
Norfolk, VA 23510
757-333-6299

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Live art performances monthly.
See the archive

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Meet the brilliant minds behind the Studio.
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Further your career and join us in Norfolk.
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The Masterpiece Society

Learn about this innovative group of museum supporters.
Meet the Masterpiece Society

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Help ensure the long-term success of the Museum.
Learn about planned giving

Historic Houses

Located on Freemason St. —

Open Saturday and Sunday

Noon–5 p.m.

Jean Outland Chrysler Library

By Appointment

Tuesday-Thursday

10:30 a.m.–3:30 p.m.

Moses Myers House

The oldest Jewish home in America open to the public as a museum offers a glimpse of the life of an early 19th century merchant family.
More about the house

About the Library

With an extensive collection of more than 106,000 rare and unique volumes relating to the history of art, the Jean Outland Chrysler Art Library is one of the most significant art libraries in the South. More about the library

Willoughby-Baylor House

Completed in 1794, this former home now presents a mix of art and artifacts. See what's on view

Located in Norfolk

One Memorial Place,
Norfolk, VA
Get Directions

While You're Here

Visit our Museum Shop
and the Wisteria Cafe.

Perry Glass Studio

A state-of-art facility on the Museum’s campus. See a free glassmaking demo Tuesdays–Sunday at noon. Like what you see? Take a class with us! More about the Studio

Moses Myers House

The home of the first permanent Jewish residents of Norfolk, this historic house offers a glimpse of the life of a wealthy early 19th-century merchant family.
More about the house

Jean Outland Chrysler Library

With an extensive collection of more than 106,000 rare and unique volumes relating to the history of art, the Jean Outland Chrysler Library is one of the most significant art libraries in the South. More about the Library

Weddings & Event Rentals

The perfect place for your big day or special event. Get the details

Take a tour

We offer a number of tours on different topics. More about tours

Jean Outland Chrysler Library

Visit one of the most significant art libraries in the South. More about the library

About the Chrysler

Our story spans well over 100 years. See where we began, how we grew, and where we're going. Explore our history

News and Announcements

See what's happening at the Museum, read Chrysler Magazine, and find our Media Center. Read now

Location

745 Duke Street
Norfolk, VA 23510
757-333-6299

Always Free Parking

Get Directions

Third Thursdays

Live art performances monthly.
See the archive

Studio Team

Meet the brilliant minds behind the Studio.
See the team

Studio Assistantship Program

Further your career and join us in Norfolk.
Find out more

The Masterpiece Society

Learn about this innovative group of museum supporters.
Meet the Masterpiece Society

Planned Giving

Help ensure the long-term success of the Museum.
Learn about planned giving

Collections Menu
Norfolk Keels

Norfolk Keels

Artist: Sam Gilliam (American, 1933 - 2022)
Date: 1998
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Dimensions:
360 x 480 in. (914.4 x 1219.2 cm)
Other (Section A): 312 × 164 in. (792.5 × 416.6 cm)
Other (Section B): 301 × 115 in. (764.5 × 292.1 cm)
Other (Section C): 463 × 101 in. (1176 × 256.5 cm)
Other (Section D): 322 × 164 in. (817.9 × 416.6 cm)
Other (Section E): 336 × 82 in. (853.4 × 208.3 cm)
Other (Section F): 412 × 98 in. (1046.5 × 248.9 cm)
Classification: Contemporary art
Credit Line: Museum purchase with funds provided by Mr. and Mrs. Arnold B. McKinnon, Mrs. and Mrs. Harry T. Lester, Bridget and Al Ritter, Leah and Richard Waitzer, Helen Gifford, and Daisy Dickson
Copyright: © Sam Gilliam / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Object number: 98.27
Terms
  • African-American Artist
  • Abstract
  • Colors
  • Non-objective
  • Multi
  • Washington Color Painters
  • Norfolk, VA
  • Washington, D.C.
In Collection(s)
On view
DescriptionThis hanging installation is acrylic on canvas with marine hardware for hanging; it was designed for the entrance of the Museum (Huber Court) and is suspended from the steel beams, below the glass-roofed atrium. It is composed of six broad strips of stained and painted canvas arranged and draped singularly. It is a site specific work of art.

Exhibition HistoryHuber Court, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia.

Label textSam Gilliam
American, 1933-2022
Norfolk Keels, 1998
Acrylic on cotton duck and marine hardware
Museum Purchase and Gift of Oriana and Arnold McKinnon, Calvert and Harry Lester,
Bridget and Al Ritter, Leah and Richard Waitzer, Helen Gifford, and Daisy Dickson 98.27
~
Norfolk Keels is not a traditional museum object like a painting or sculpture. It is a
site-specific installation, a work of art designed by an artist in response to a unique
space. When installed it becomes a part of that space, changing it and at the same
time helping us understand a familiar spot in new and exciting ways.

Sam Gilliam designed Norfolk Keels especially for Huber Court. Working with his
assistants, he hung and draped and adjusted these great swaths of brilliantly colored
fabric until he had brought them into a kind of dynamic equilibrium, until the lengths
of fabric hung in harmony with themselves and with the surrounding architecture.

Gilliam thought of his works as a visual parallel to jazz music. Much as a jazz musician
steps beyond the written notes on his page so Gilliam created works that are "Structured
Improvisations," a careful balance of freedom and structure, chaos and control.
Published References Martha N. Hagood and Jefferson C. Harrison, _American Art at the Chrysler Museum: Selected Paintings, Sculpture, and Drawings_ (Norfolk, Va.: Chrysler Museum of Art, 2005), 264-265, no. 161. Jeff Harrison, _Collecting with Vision: Treasures From the Chrysler Museum of Art_ (London: D. Giles Ltd., 2007), 84, fig. 100. Amy E. Herman with Heather Maclean, _smART: Use Your Eyes to Boost Your Brain_ (New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2022) 167.
Provenance The artist; Chrysler Museum of Art Purchase and Gift of Oriana and Arnold McKinnon, Calvert and Harry Lester, Bridget and Al Ritter, Leah and Richard Waitzer, Helen Gifford, and Daisy Dickson, 1998.
Catalogue EntrySam Gilliam
Tupelo, Miss. 1933
Norfolk Keels, 1998
Acrylic on canvas, approx. 360 × 480 in. (914.4 × 1219.2 cm)
Museum Purchase and Gift of Oriana and Arnold McKinnon, Calvert and Harry Lester, Bridget and Al Ritter, Leah and Richard Waitzer, Helen Gifford, and Daisy Dickson, 98.27.1-6

Sam Gilliam moved to Washington, D.C., in 1962, after earning his masters degree in painting at the University of Louisville. There he joined a group of abstract painters, led by Morris Louis (see object 77.1240) and Kenneth Noland, who were continuing experiments in expressionism begun by Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Helen Frankenthaler (see objects 83.592, 89.54). Louis died in 1962, but younger artists including Gilliam, Gene Davis, Thomas Downing, and Howard Mehring continued in a similar vein. They acquired the label Washington Color Painters in a 1965 exhibition.
For most of the serious artists and critics of the 1960s, modernist painting was supposed to develop progressively and logically over time; its goal was the perfect expression of the essential qualities that distinguished painting from all other media. For the Abstract Expressionists, those qualities had been "flatness" and pure abstraction. The authoritative critic Clement Greenberg recognized the Washington Color Painters as heirs to the movement that had made Pollock famous and New York the undisputed center of modern art.
Preferring the intense colors of acrylic paint over oil, Gilliam and his colleagues used techniques such as staining and bleeding thinned paint into very large canvases, pouring paint in rivulets along folded fabric, and, for Gilliam, raking paint in thick layers onto the canvas and folding and reopening the painting while it was still wet. In 1968 he made the formal leap that established him as a painter of serious stature. He discarded the wooden "stretcher" support for the canvas and freely arranged his paintings in folds, waves, and pleats, draping them over sawhorses, mounting them against walls, and suspending them from ceilings. "In retrospect," Gilliam wrote later, "I can see that these canvases reflect certain tendencies in the art of the time. Many artists were searching for ways to shape a work so that its overall configuration was a result of the process." Within a few years, Gilliam began to create large environments, site-specific works like Autumn Surf (1973) at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Since then, he has continued to use his staining and draping technique for public commissions.
By the 1970s Gilliam was among the most important black artists in the country, and one of a very few who worked exclusively in abstraction. He assumed this role with some ambivalence. His accomplishments were part of a formalist tradition that largely denied the world outside the studio; his cultural identity in that context was simply "modernist." Over time, however, Gilliam came to address black aesthetics and the cultural meaning of blackness in both his art and his public statements. Art historian David Driskell, a specialist in African-American culture, has characterized Gilliam's creativity as an equivalent of jazz, blues, gospel, and other "structured innovations" of black origin.
Gilliam designed Norfolk Keels for the Chrysler Museum of Art's classical entrance hall, Huber Court. First, he prepared six large stained and painted canvases in his studio. Then, with the aid of assistants, he installed the paintings in the upper spaces of the glass-roofed atrium. The paintings are attached to steel beams with marine hardware; several corners were left hanging freely to form triangular swaths. The colorful billows and wedges suggest the forms of boats in a harbor, in reference to Norfolk's nautical history. From the floor of Huber Court, the vividly expressive paintings are framed against a formal grid of steel and glass overhead. The effects of color, light, and shadow vary with the season and the weather.
MNH

Martha N. Hagood and Jefferson C. Harrison, _American Art at the Chrysler Museum: Selected Paintings, Sculpture, and Drawings_ (Norfolk, Va.: Chrysler Museum of Art, 2005), 264-265, no. 161.