Hirshhorn Museum Director Melissa Chui says that a retrospective of D.C.-based painter Sam Gilliam has been something the museum wanted to do for a long time — the Smithsonian museum even announced it in February 2020 — but like so many things in the last couple years, it was delayed due to COVID. In this instance, the delay may have been a stroke of luck.

That’s because all but one of the works in “Sam Gilliam: Full Circle,” which opened at the Hirshhorn Wednesday, were created in the last two years. Some of us baked bread during lockdown; Gilliam, now 88, made a revelatory series of paintings that build upon his storied career and push the limits of abstraction and material exploration.

The artist was in attendance at an opening preview on May 24, where Chui addressed him, saying “[the exhibit is] a testament not just to the two years it took to make this work, but your whole career.” Gilliam is best known for his “draped paintings,” or raw canvases that he stained with pigment and hung in interesting formations from walls or ceilings, freeing painting from the traditional rectangular frame.

Born in Tupelo, Mississippi, Gilliam moved to D.C. in 1962 and has lived, worked, and exhibited widely here ever since. The last time that Gilliam’s work was shown in D.C. on this scale was a retrospective at the now-closed Corcoran Gallery of Art in 2005. It’s a big deal for a local artist, albeit a pioneering and acclaimed one, to get such a distinguished placement on the National Mall. In 2016, D.C.-based artist Linn Myers created a site specific drawing that wrapped an entire wall of the same second story gallery where Gilliam’s works now hang, but a comprehensive showcase of a local artist’s career at a Smithsonian museum is unprecedented.

Gilliam is typically associated with the Washington Color School movement, which flourished in D.C. from the 1950s through the 1970s. He sometimes quibbles about his inclusion in the group due to given the sculptural nature of his work, saying in an interview earlier this year, “Even though I was a painter and I use color, the painting was never the same as we moved from space to space.” Still, it is inarguable that abstracted color is a driving force of his artwork, and he is the best-known and only living member of this cohort.

Sam Gilliam: Full Circle opens with “Rail,” a 15 foot wide painting from 1977 that was already in the Hirshhorn’s collection and shows some of Gilliam’s earliest experiments with building up textured layers of materials. The rest of the works in the show are circular “tondos,” each encased in a circular, bevel-edged birch frame, some of which have been painted over.

The many layers of paint are thickened with sawdust, metal fragments that look like ball bearings, and other debris found in his studio. The artist used a metal rake to scrape away at these layers and reveal colors and textures that lie beneath. Several of the paintings have been cut into slices, looking like richly frosted cakes about to be served. Peer at the seams of those slices and you can see the density of the layers and feel the labor that went into these works.

You can find glimpses of Gilliam in other locations around D.C.: his draped painting “Carousel Light Depth” is prominently displayed in the lobby of the REACH at Kennedy Center, and his work “Shoot Six” was on view at National Gallery of Art prior to the East Building closing for renovations. The Phillips Collection, where he participated in several exhibitions and had one of his earliest solo shows, has many Gilliam works in its collection, but none currently on view.

Nationally and globally, his work has become more popular than ever in recent years. He was featured in the 2017 Venice Biennale, Dia Beacon in upstate New York has dedicated a semi-permanent gallery  to his draped installations, and he was recently one of a trio of artists to participate in Epistrophy at Pace Gallery in New York City, to much acclaim. As the Hirshhorn this exhibit makes clear, the octogenarian has no intention of slowing his output or resting on his laurels. He continues to innovate with his work, and appreciation for his work continues to grow and reach new audiences. As Chiu said at the opening event, “This exhibit is a recognition that art history is changing. It aims to give recognition to artists long overdue, like our hometown hero.”

Sam Gilliam: Full Circle, May 25-Sept 11, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Independence Ave SW &, 7th St SW, Washington, DC 20560.