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U.S. Department of State - Washington, D.C.

The Harry S. Truman Building serves as the U.S. Department of State’s Headquarters in Washington, D.C. It was originally built to house the War Department, which had outgrown the building before it was ever completed and therefore needed a new space, the Pentagon. The Foggy Bottom building became the home of the State Department in the late 1940s, was expanded in 1961, and has undergone several renovations and modernizations since that time. In 2022 the new D Street “employee” entrance opened. More than 2,000 people enter through this entrance daily.

Artist Gift

Sam Gilliam

On June 25, 2022, FAPE installed Sam Gilliam’s Beautiful Man in the State Department’s D Street “employee” entrance. The painting was hung on the day the artist passed away. The work greets State Department employees and visitors each day in our nation’s diplomatic headquarters.

Among the most ambitious paintings in the artist’s late body of work, Gilliam’s Beautiful Man was created by layering fields of splendidly saturated color to create a kind of abstract landscape. The artist methodically built up multiple layers of paint creating a surface of almost geological richness. The uppermost skeins of pigment are laid down in shades of white, unifying the composition and suggesting gauze fabric stretched or shrouded over an interior of vibrant color. Gilliam textured the surface of the paint by mixing it with a wide variety of other materials, which include sawdust, socks and powdered metals, before dragging the end of a rake across it at oblique angles.

Gift of the Ford Foundation, Agnes Gund (in honor of Sharon Percy Rockefeller), The Honorable Ronald S. Lauder and Mrs. Jo Carole Lauder, and 

Sam Gilliam
Beautiful Man
2021
Mixed media and acrylic on canvas 96 x 240 x 4 inches

Kathleen McDonnell, Pace Gallery; Brian Bajolo, John Deffet, Keith Zoufaly and Steve Lebron, Art Installation Design; Bennett Varghese, State Department; Tom Zoufaly, Art Installation Design; Jennifer Duncan, FAPE Director; Jerry Rivera, Manny Nunez, Emir Tabakovic, Ray Vivieca and Mike Luisi, Art Installation Design; John Richey, Pace Gallery

 

U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., USA
2201 C Street, NW,
Washington, D.C. 20520

Visit State Department website