Orb #2
1970
20th Century
15 7/8 in. x 27 1/2 in.
Sewell Sillman,
American,
(1921–1992)
Object Type:
Work on Paper
Medium and Support:
screen print on paper
Credit Line:
Florence Griswold Museum; Gift of Fernande E. Ross
Accession Number:
2008.6
This is an artist’s proof, signed and dated. Sillman was a disciple of Albers, but in later years broke away and embraced a more contemplative style that focused on barbed lines and the relationship between positive and negative space. This work was completed shortly after the first moon landing and its form reveals Sillman’s fascination with outer space. Sillman lived in Lyme and was a teacher at RISD, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania. Former curator Jack Becker is the head of the foundation that controls the estate.
Although Sillman was a part of the fine art publishing team of Ives?Sillman, the firm
only issued five prints of Sillman’s own works, among them Orb #2. The print
represents one of Sillman’s latest uses of his barbed waves, here combined with a
new motif in his oeuvre, the orb. Though he returned to the orb in the late 1970s, he
was by then working in watercolor exclusively. Orb #2, therefore, presents a rare
confluence of two of Sillman’s major motifs and his expertise in printmaking.