Jeffrey Dennis blogs his notes on a recent lecture, Clyfford Still: Life Against Death, by David Anfam at Chelsea College of Art, London on May 12, 2011.

Dennis writes: "Anfam described Still's utterly serious demeanour, and how his radicalism emerged out of conservative beginnings. His early work reveals an ambition to be part of the tradition of grand, 'salon' painting (an admiration for the drawing of Ingres and a belief in the central importance of the figure, the desire for the large-scale) an ambition that persisted even in the later 'abstract expressionist' paintings."