VII.60

Sewell Sillman was born in Georgia, one of the few native Southerners to study at Black Mountain College. When he arrived in 1948, he began with an interest in architecture but quickly found inspiration in Josef Albers's and Pete Jennerjahn's color and design instruction. He followed Albers to Yale in 1950 as a student, but eventually became a full faculty member, a position he held until 1966. At Yale, he organized exhibitions for Albers and released a seminal portfolio of Albers’s instructional prints in 1963 through his art publishing firm, Ives-Sillman; this firm went on to produce portfolios and prints for many well-known artists of the time.

His desire for creative freedom made him no less of a dedicated and demanding artist and educator. Sillman returned to BMC briefly in 1952 but found the shift towards Abstract Expressionism—promoted by such faculty members as Jack Tworkov—uninspired.