Clyfford Still thought the best way to experience his art was by seeing it all in one place. Designed specifically to display Still’s work, the award-winning 28,500-square-foot Clyfford Still Museum is home to about 3,125 pieces representing more than 93 percent of his lifetime of work.

Discover vibrant art and architecture; glimpse behind the scenes into painting conservation areas; shop from thoughtfully curated items; and learn more about a groundbreaking artist who wanted viewers to make their own meaning with his art.

More Than Paintings

Located in the heart of Denver’s Golden Triangle Creative District, the Clyfford Still Museum offers much more than massive art. Explore its stunning architecture, conceived as a solid, mass of concrete, crushed granite and quartz in a single construction opened by natural light, deriving its presence from the earth.

Visitors of all ages will enjoy a variety of events, including indoor performances and outdoor concerts, hands-on workshops, thought-provoking talks by local and world-renowned experts, peaceful meditation sessions, fascinating tours, family-friendly events, infant art crawls, monthly free days and more. Create your own artwork and experiment with an assortment of art materials in The Making Space, a hands-on creation studio for people of all ages.

 

Big Ideas, Big Feelings, and Big Art in Awful Bigness

Immerse yourself in Clyfford Still’s biggest, most ambitious works in the exhibition Awful Bigness, on view until Sept. 10, 2023.

When hiking to the top of nearby mountains and looking out across the vast landscape, one might feel a sense of achievement while feeling their own smallness. This experience might include a fear of tumbling or disappearing in the face of such grandeur. Western artists and intellectuals called this experience sublime. Still’s largest, most immersive paintings may also provoke big feelings of awe, terror and transcendence. Experience the sublime at the Clyfford Still Museum and explore big feelings, big ideas and big art.

The exhibition follows a chronological display of artworks, which overviews Still’s groundbreaking 60-year career and journey toward abstraction.

 

Abstract Expressions Terrace Installation

Experience Abstract Expressions, a new sound and garden installation featuring multi-sensory artist interventions and unique garden plantings on the museum’s reimagined outdoor terrace spaces. This multi-year collaboration honors the fundamental connections between Still’s art, life, the natural world and Denver’s creative ecosystem.

 

The Artist

Clyfford Still (1904–1980) had a unique artistic vision and was unwilling to compromise it for money or recognition. As he evolved as an artist, Still’s works transitioned from recognizable images or landscapes to more abstract shapes, colors and lines to express an idea or feeling. He painted on huge canvases to invite viewers to experience and be absorbed by them. Still left his collection to an American city willing to establish a museum to care for and display his art—making this collection truly special because it belongs to the community. He did not name his works because he wanted people to make their own interpretations.

 

Digital Guide

Enjoy more ways to connect to the collection and museum with the mobile guide, available on the free arts and culture app Bloomberg Connects via Google Play or the App Store. The digital guide makes the Clyfford Still Museum accessible for onsite or offsite visits through photo, audio and video features, and offers insights into current and past exhibitions, collections, family resources, programs and more.