Verdant green, patches of crimson, and lightening yellow bloom across Were (recto); Ohio 2 (verso), Sam Gilliam’s kaleidoscopic and ebullient double- sided watercolour from 1974. Gilliam is renowned for his so-called Drape paintings, for which he liberated his canvases from their supports to form hanging, swaying abstractions; Were (recto); Ohio 2 (verso) similarly possesses a sense of loose, almost sultry movement which grows outward from its core. A long-time resident of Washington D.C., Gilliam is often associated with Colour Field painters such as Kenneth Noland and Morris Louis, but his compositions resist such easy categorisation. Instead, writes critic Roberta Smith, ‘his abstract images tap into many kinds of experience, including the unpretentious pleasures of tie-dye fabrics and spin paintings and glowing summer sunsets. He allows you to see how abstract art has been shaped less by the lofty theories of yesteryear’s critics than by the teeming circus of everyday life’ (R. Smith, ‘Sam Gilliam Unfurls an Exuberant Rainbow at Dia:Beacon’, New York Times, 13 September 2019, nytimes.com/2019/09/12/arts/design/sam-gilliam-dia-beacon-color-.html).
Diana Metcalf Stainow (1926-2019) was born and raised in Boston and after her marriage to Gregory Stainow, who she met in New York, she moved to France, eventually splitting her time between Paris and London. She was a painter with an eye for color and pattern and a profound interest in non-western cultures. Her taste was grounded in her family American cultural heritage. She was a descendant of Robert Treat Paine, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and a founding member of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society. Her grandfather, Robert Treat Paine II, was a renowned Boston collector who gifted many masterpieces to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Her father, Thomas Metcalf, was one of the founders of the Boston Institute of Contemporary art, formerly called then the Boston Museum of Modern Art.
During World War II, the Institute became the home of the Metcalf family who occupied the two top floors of the building; the distinction between private and public space was blurred as local artists, members of the Institute, were welcome in the Metcalf household. During these formative artistic years for Diana – who attended the Boston Museum School – the Institute had an exhibition program striking for its diversity, inclusiveness and daring representation of the vitality of American art during the 1940’s in addition to its contemporary European programming. This period was decisive in shaping her approach to collecting which ranged across centuries, cultures and styles. In the 40’s The Institute had a first solo show of Georges Rouault and exhibited works by Leger and Maillol – all artists in her collection that are now being sold. Stainow’s idiosyncratic approach was also evident in her elegant apartment in London. With her unique and daring eye she commissioned a graffiti artist to paint the entrance foyer and hung Rouault tapestries and Toulouse-Lautrec Elle prints over the graffiti to striking effect.