Zane Bennett Contemporary Art is pleased to offer two unique prints by Sam Gilliam (1933-2022), one of the most influential figures in postwar American abstraction. Gilliam's work is notable for redefining the physical and conceptual boundaries of painting, most notably by liberating the canvas from the wall when he suspended his abstract paintings on unstretched canvas directly from the ceiling. Beyond this revolutionary work of the 1960s, Gilliam led a long and productive career as one of America's leading abstract artists, consistently collapsing distinctions between the different mediums in which he worked.
In July 1994, Gilliam created several series of prints at Berghoff-Cowden Editions, a women-owned fine art print publishing company located in Tampa, Florida. Working closely with master printer Carl Cowden, Gilliam brought his characteristic experimental style to the prints he produced there-using serigraphy as a starting point for creating variable editions and monotypes rather than identical impressions. As noted in a contemporary press release from the publisher, the prints Gilliam created that summer are about "printing pushed to the edge."
Sam Gilliam, right, with Carl Cowden, master printer at Berghoff-Cowden Editions, left (1994). Photo courtesy of Linda Berghoff
To fulfill Gilliam's request that stitching be incorporated into the prints produced at Berghoff-Cowden Editions, the staff overseeing the project were required to look beyond the resources of a traditional print studio. Ultimately, they engaged a company that produced parachutes and body bags, using industrial stitching machines to physically assemble the printed sheets. This unconventional intervention underscores Gilliam's insistence on pushing the technical and material limits of printmaking by treating each print as a uniquely constructed object.
Carl Cowden, far left, and Sam Gilliam, far right, discussing proofs in the studio (1994). Photo courtesy of Linda Berghoff
Cool Bean 1, a color screenprint and monoprint with collage and stitching, is a unique work from a variable edition of four. The composition is organized around a central seam that both divides and joins the printed surface, creating a sense of balance that remains deliberately unresolved. In the other newly acquired work, Hav-A-Tampa 12, Gilliam uses stitching to assemble two differently sized sheets of paper into a single work, producing an irregular format that introduces tension between surface and space.
SAM GILLIAM | Hav-a-Tampa 12, 1995. Color screen print and monoprint with collage on stitched paper, 34 x 28 3/4 in (86.4 x 73 cm)
Both works feature overlapping passages of saturated color, creating multicolored abstract imagery that Gilliam cut, reassembled, and collaged, resulting in prints that are both dramatic and tactile. The dynamism in both works reflects the musicality in his visual art practice, one that creates by feel in the moment and looks to the improvisational play between the spontaneous and the intentional in jazz.
Gilliam's approach to the prints he produced at Berghoff-Cowden Editions demonstrates an unwavering commitment to testing the boundaries of the mediums in which he worked. Rather than treating printmaking as a secondary or reproductive practice, Gilliam allowed it to function as an extension of his broader body of work, reimagining what serigraphy might become when approached as a site for innovation and experimentation.
An impression from the variable edition of Hav-A-Tampa is held in the collection of the Saint Louis Art Museum, while other Sam Gilliam prints produced at Berghoff-Cowden Editions can be found in the collections of the Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art at St. Petersburg College in Tarpon Springs, Florida. For more information about Cool Bean 1 and Hav-a-Tampa 12, please email info@zanebennettgallery.com.
Gilliam's work is in more than fifty public collections. In 2021, Dia Beacon acquired Gilliam's large-scale Double Merge (1968). In 2023, Dia also established the Sam Gilliam Award given annually to a selected artist working in any medium and residing anywhere in the world. An exhibition of Gilliam's canonical Drape paintings opened at Pace Gallery in New York in 2025.
More Details
SAM GILLIAM | (DETAIL) Cool Bean 1, 1994. Color screen print and monoprint with collage, 18 3/4 x 50 in (47.6 x 127 cm)
SAM GILLIAM | (DETAIL) Hav-a-Tampa 12, 1995. Color screen print and monoprint with collage on stitched paper, 34 x 28 3/4 in (86.4 x 73 cm)
SAM GILLIAM | (DETAIL) Hav-a-Tampa 12, 1995. Color screen print and monoprint with collage on stitched paper, 34 x 28 3/4 in (86.4 x 73 cm)
Unless otherwise stated, photos by Marylene Mey, courtesy of Zane Bennett Contemporary Art
Artwork © Artists and the Estates of the artists pictured