Frank Stella in Tampa Beginning in April, the Tampa Museum of Art will be holding two concurrent exhibits of works by Frank Stella. The first exhibit, titled Frank Stella: Illustrations After El Lissitzky’s Had Gadya, consists of a portfolio of twelve prints that Stella created in 1984, after a visit to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. The inspiration [...]
A recent exhibit at the Whitney Museum focused on the exuberant colors that pivotal artists used during the psychedelic 1960s. Included in the show was Frank Stella's Gran Cairo, part of the Whitney's permanent collection, one of the first paintings that Stella did after the Black Series that brought him instant acclaim in the art world when he was barely twenty-five. The exhibit, called Spilling Over: Painting Color in the 1960s magnified the varied styles and focus of the mid-century artists.
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.
At age 82, Stella is ready to part with some of the works he's collected, and some of his own works, which he says are piled up in his Hudson Valley studio in upstate New York. Some of the artwork, his and the work of other artists, are being auctioned at Christie's London and New York, for an expected return of more than $25 million.
When Frank Stella moved to New York in 1958, at age 22, he had graduated from Princeton and just wanted to to paint. "I wasn’t thinking of becoming an artist." he said, "I just wanted to make things and paint for a while." That "while" has continued for the past sixty years, with Stella's work continually evolving, even today.
The 1970s was a time when critics began to talk about, “the death of painting.” Frank Stella rejuvenated both painting and fine art printmaking by pushing the limits of both. In the middle of the 1970s, Stella’s work became more lavish and unrestrained. He began to use French Curves and other technical drafting tools to create sweeping and sinuous lines and new materials to give his paintings and extra dimensions.
Left: “The Gallant Indies (Les Indes galantes)”, 1966, private collection Bridgeman Art Library © Frank Stella. ARS, NY and DACS, London 2015 Right: Mr Stella in his studio, New York, 1968 © Malcolm Lubliner Frank Stella is an American painter, sculptor and master printmaker whose idea of a painting as an object, had a [...]
