Publication Turns Abstracted Idea into Concrete Realization

The Clinton Hill publication

In addition to organizing many exhibitions, workshops and events, the Georgia Museum of Art also annually publishes a number of exhibition catalogues and other publications. The most recent of these publications is unique not only in its content, but its construction. The catalogue, “Clinton Hill,” was written by museum director Dr. William U. Eiland and surveys the life and career of Clinton Hill, a multitalented artist who was a Renaissance man of the abstract.

The structure of the physical book contains a number of unique elements that catch the eye of any who pass it. The front cover includes a die cut, allowing parts of the interior pages to be seen. The front and back covers are glued on in separate pieces, leaving the spine visible. The title of the book is printed on the folded edges of the signatures, with binders’ thread exposed over it. The book is also printed on two different types of paper: a high-recycled-content stock in a birch color, printed with a single Pantone color (including vintage photographs of Hill at work), and a silk-coated white art stock for the color plates. Hill’s work in collage and with handmade paper inspired its design, by Almanac of St. Louis.

In the foreword of the publication, Eiland describes Hill’s art as “works of intense vision, of radical experimentation, of lyrical loveliness . . . unknowable things of the unbridled imagination, of the human spirit, of the abstracted idea, and of its concrete realization.”

With an artist whose work inspires such passion, it is fitting that the publication is an out of the ordinary project suitable for the man who lived and worked “without apology or circumspection.”

Copies of “Clinton Hill” are available for purchase at the Museum Shop, on Amazon or on our website for $40.

Thinking Outside and Inside the Box: Clinton Hill Exhibition at the Georgia Museum of Art

Clinton Hill Installation

On a typical Tuesday at the Georgia Museum of Art, Todd Rivers, Elizabeth Howe and their new intern Sara Katherine package up pieces from one exhibition to prepare for the next. The tacky snap of tape on cardboard creates a rhythm of productivity. As the sound echoes off the walls of the gallery, the building itself almost hums along to the tune. This activity is normal for the museum, as exhibitions rotate through these galleries about every three months.

Todd and Elizabeth, as preparators, organize this rotation to make sure the process runs smoothly and efficiently. Preparators work alongside curators and artists to create the best experience for museum visitors to see the works of art, which find their way to the museum. They decide how to frame, hang and label the works displayed in the museum.

Most recently, the museum’s director, William Eiland, organized an exhibition of the work of Clinton Hill, an abstract artist working in the 20th century. Rivers explained that Eiland charged him and Howe first to “transport the viewer into an alternate reality” and then to help the viewer “understand the purpose of abstraction without words.”

With these goals in mind, Rivers and Howe chose atypical methods for presenting Hill’s work. They responded to the jagged and freeform nature of Hill’s works by placing them in diagonal, tilted and even disjointed, lines. The orange lining of an artist-made box for a work titled “Duo,” an accordion-style book, inspired the complementary orange that accents the exhibition. Hill experimented with various techniques in papermaking, so techniques like glowing lightboxes and smooth wood tables highlight the three-dimensionality of Hill’s work. By understanding Hill’s “paper constructions” and not just two-dimensional paintings, this installation elevates the viewer to the realm of abstraction as an invitation to explore color, shapes and form alongside Clinton Hill.   

Soon Todd and Elizabeth will box these works back up again. The walls will be painted. The future repurposed. And a new exhibition will fill the gallery. Before then, you do not want to miss the chance to see what reality you might find in Clinton Hill’s work.

Clinton Hill is on view January 6 – March 18, 2018 in the Virginia and Alfred Kennedy and Philip Henry Alston Jr. Galleries. 

McKenzie Peterson

Intern, Department of Communications

More views from the Clinton Hill installation

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