Frank Stella: Offset Lithographs at Surovek Gallery

Frank Stella changed the way in which art was viewed and created in post-war America.

His minimalist Black Painting Series, which debuted at the Museum of Modern Art's Sixteen Americans show in 1959, ushered in the Minimalist movement and led to Stella's renown in the art world. In 1970, he became the youngest artist to have a retrospective at MoMA, and then became the first living artist to have a second retrospective just 17 years later.

Frank Stella, House Painter

Frank Stella was born in Malden, Massachusetts in 1936. His father and mother were both first-generation Americans of Italian descent. His father was a gynecologist, his mother a landscape painter. They passed a strong work ethic on to their son who, at his father's insistence, worked as a house and boat painter to earn extra money. (Before qualifying as a gynecologist, Stella's father did some house painting himself.)

Stella majored in history at Princeton and moved to Manhattan in 1958 to pursue his career as an artist. Familiar with the qualities of house paint, and a struggling artist on a budget, house paint was Stella's medium of choice for much of his early work. His transition from minimalism to maximalism was gradual. After the Black Painting Series, Stella began to introduce color into his work.

He created a series called The Benjamin Moore Series, using minimal design in different Benjamin Moore paint colors. Andy Warhol bought a set of miniature versions of six of Stella's Benjamin Moore Paintings in May, 1961. A few months later Warhol painted his iconic Campbell's Soup Cans.

Frank Stella, Printmaker

Frank Stella began to work with master printer Kenneth Tyler in the mid-1960s. Stella liked to work with Magic Markers, and it was Tyler's idea to fill Magic Markers with lithography fluid to create designs. Stella became proficient at printmaking, using a variety of techniques, like etching, lithography, screen printing, and offset lithography (which Stella is credited with inventing). Stella's prints were well received and they helped the art world to understand the masterful work and value of fine art prints.ht)

For sale at Surovek Gallery

He began the Exotic Bird series during his 1977 stay in Ahmedabad, India, with many of the works becoming models for the three-dimensional works that Stella went on to create. At age 83, Stella has been creating sculptures and architectural works from his New York studio and from his studio in upstate New York.