Clyfford Still Museum
Home to the art and legacy of the American painter Clyfford Still, we invite all to explore the potential of individual creative endeavor. Designed specifically to display Still’s art, the award-winning Clyfford Still Museum is home to nearly everything he created, approximately 3,125 pieces representing 93 percent of his lifetime of work. The Museum supports new artistic endeavors, inviting visitors to draw strength from Still’s art and life. At the Still, visitors will find a world-class collection gifted to the City and County of Denver, award-winning architecture, cross-disciplinary programs for all ages, and opportunities to explore their own creativity. Exhibitions stimulate curiosity, arouse emotions, and explore multiple perspectives. The Still invites visitors to refresh, recharge, and reconnect with joy.
Exhibitions:
“Tell Clyfford I Said ‘Hi’”: An Exhibition Curated by Children of the Colville Confederated Tribes
September 19, 2025–May 10, 2026
The Clyfford Still Museum’s collaborative exhibition, “Tell Clyfford I Said ‘Hi’”: An Exhibition Curated by Children of the Colville Confederated Tribes, co-curated with youth from the Colville Confederated Tribes Reservation in Washington, is on view September 19, 2025, through May 10, 2026. Installed in all nine of the Museum’s galleries, the exhibition highlights the perspectives of Colville children on Still’s depictions of their home and ancestors, and the artist’s abstract works. Tell Clyfford also explores themes identified by the co-curators, including Family & Culture, Connection, Imagination, the Outside, Love, and Paint & Color.
Still in Sound
May 16, 2026–February 14, 2027
The exhibition Still in Sound, on view from May 16, 2026, through February 14, 2027, at the Clyfford Still Museum, explores the diverse ways to understand abstract visual language through sound. Co-curated by Bailey Placzek, CSM’s curator of collections, and Ben Coleman, a British multi-disciplinary artist, Still in Sound engages five contemporary artists working with sound in their practice. After brief residencies onsite at the Museum, each artist selects an abstract artwork by Clyfford Still and composes an original sound-based piece in response. Their selections and resulting compositions set the tone for each of the Still’s largest galleries. Placzek, in turn, responds by filling the rest of each room with other works by Still that resonate with the tone set by the artist’s contribution and artwork selection for that gallery. Then, Coleman arranges the various sounds drifting across the Museum’s galleries to create a holistic, immersive environment through which visitors enjoy a multisensory, unexpected experience with Still’s work. Guest artists include: Maria Chávez, Maya Dunietz, Kalyn Heffernan, Matana Roberts, and Michael Schumacher.
Celebrating 15 Years: 15 New Paintings in 15 Months
May 16, 2026–September 19, 2027
Fifteen years after the Clyfford Still Museum opened its doors in Denver, CO, roughly two-thirds of its art collection has still never been exhibited in its galleries. To mark the Museum’s 15th anniversary, the Still will unveil fifteen paintings that have never been on public view over the course of fifteen months. Each month, the Museum will introduce one new painting into a special feature exhibition installed in its first gallery. The fifteen paintings range in date from 1947 to 1973, spanning the period when Still produced some of his most groundbreaking abstract expressionist work. Each work will debut with behind-the-scenes insights available on the Museum’s digital guide.
Tools of the Trade: A Lifetime of Materials and Techniques
February 27–September 19, 2027
In Tools of the Trade, the Clyfford Still Museum reunites the community with a full chronological presentation of Clyfford Still’s work, with spotlights throughout on his experimentation with a range of techniques and materials. Still became renowned for his distinctive use of oil paints, applied with a metal trowel or palette knife. Throughout his career, however, he experimented with a variety of materials and techniques. He practiced and taught printmaking, at times capturing the composition of a painted work in paper-based media. He executed sketches on paper and, early in his career on window shade. In his late career, Still explored the use of latex paint, applying it with rollers of varying sizes. He also intensified his use of pastels on construction paper during the winter. The Still will show how the artist tested new strategies and materials throughout his life. By exploring the techniques Still explored during specific moments in his artmaking, visitors will learn how the professional, geographic, architectural, and material settings he created for himself often motivated his exploration of specific artistic strategies.
