Clyfford Still Online

The Clyfford Still Museum in Denver, Colorado, is a one of a kind cultural institution dedicated entirely to the life and legacy of renowned Abstract Expressionist artist Clyfford Still.

Since 2014, the museum has used the 'Qi' CMS for managing its extensive collection. In 2023, we began discussions to bring this remarkable collection online. The shared vision: to create a rich digital experience that would serve as both a virtual extension of the museum’s physical exhibitions and vast collection as well as an educational platform, a space that connects, contextualizes, and opens access to Still’s work in new and meaningful ways.

Clyfford Still Online is an engaging digital portal that provides broad access to the artist’s extraordinary body of work. The platform is structured around four core sections: Artworks, Archive, Exhibitions, and Stories, each offering a unique lens into Still’s life, practice, and legacy.

Users can explore detailed object records, view high-resolution images, and utilize interactive tools such as a timeline and map to gain visual and historical context. Whether you're conducting research, teaching, or simply exploring, the site serves as an accessible and educational extension of the museum, bringing Clyfford Still’s groundbreaking work to audiences around the world.

We aimed to create a dynamic and engaging digital experience that allows users to explore Exhibitions, Public Collections, and Places of Creation, showcasing the global reach and historical scope of Clyfford Still’s work. To enhance this exploration, we developed an interactive map that serves as a visual anchor, helping users trace Still’s artistic journey across both time and geography.

This map combines geographic data with rich content and media, enabling users to discover where key works were created, the institutions that now house them, and the major exhibitions that shaped his legacy. The result is an immersive tool that deepens understanding and invites meaningful engagement with Still’s life and art.

We created a flexible, user friendly space that empowers users to organize and curate artworks and archival materials into meaningful groups and albums. This feature lets individuals add custom titles and descriptions, compare works side by side, and view true to scale renderings to better appreciate each piece’s physical dimensions and impact.

Whether for personal exploration, academic research, or collaboration, this functionality transforms passive browsing into active engagement. Users can compile collections by theme, period, technique, or personal interest, creating a more personalized experience of Clyfford Still’s work.

These curated albums can be easily shared, making the platform especially valuable for students, educators, and researchers. Teachers can create study sets, students can collaborate on projects, and scholars can present curated selections, all within a centralized digital environment designed to support learning and discovery.

'We are over the moon to announce the launch of Clyfford Still Online. CSO brings Still’s art (both at the Clyfford Still Museum and in external collections), archives, and biography together for the first time into a single, accessible, digital platform specifically designed to encourage deep exploration of Still's universe.

It's hard for this moment not to feel like a personal milestone. For the past fourteen years, I have worked alongside my amazing colleagues to inventory, research, and catalogue Still's vast body of work, identifying connections between objects, distant collectors, and information on long-lost works so that one day it could all be seen, shared, and appreciated as Still intended—as one "Total Act."

And while work continues on the artist's catalogue raisonné, the launch of CSO marks a new phase and provides behind-the-scenes insight into the state of the project's current research. Thank you Keepthinking and the entire project team Clyfford Still Museum. We did it!'