American artist Sam Gilliam (born 1933) merges aspects of action painting, color field painting, and postpainterly abstraction with his own unique approach to the shaped canvas. The result is color structured by the form of the canvas itself.

Sam Gilliam was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, in 1933. He received a B.A. degree in fine arts and an M.A. degree in painting (1961) from the University of Louisville, Kentucky. He later resided in Washington, D.C. and taught in public schools there as well as prominent art schools and universities in Washington D.C., Maryland, and Pennsylvania. Throughout his career, Gilliam has been concerned with problems of color, atmosphere, and structure. His interest in color staining was inspired, in part, by the work of "Washington color artists" such as Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland. A strong philosophical influence also came from the sculptor Rockne Krebs, with whom Gilliam shared a...