Sam Gilliam, the abstract artist who rose to prominence in the 1960s with his large-scale draped canvas paintings, will join Pace Gallery’s roster of artists, the gallery announced Monday . It will be the first time in the 85-year-old painter’s long career that he will be represented by a New York gallery.

Considered a master in the third wave of Color Field painters, Mr. Gilliam has spent much of his career in Washington, where he first started to experiment with unsupported canvases. His signature draped and beveled-edge paintings, which are suspended from the ceiling or stretched across beveled frames, were considered a radical reimagining of the medium. In 1972, he became the first black artist to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale.

Yet, despite his early success, Mr. Gilliam has never been represented by a New York gallery . Arne Glimcher, the founder of Pace Gallery, attributed that to the artist’s nonconformist sensibility, saying the artist has “really steered his own career and steered it clear of what we know as the art market.”

“He’s had many, many opportunities,” Mr. Glimcher said. “He didn’t want it and I think, I hope, it was that he was waiting for the right moment to show his work in broader venues.”