May 12, 2023
Happy 87th Birthday to Frank Stella (May 12, 1936)
Orietta Ibarrondo Gelardin

Frank Stella is one of the most popular and influential living post-war contemporary art painters. Stella was the first a leading figure in the Minimalist movement and later became known for his irregularly shaped works and large- scale multimedia reliefs.

 

Frank Stella (b. 1936), Lettre Sur Les Aveugles I, 1974. Acrylic on canvas. 141 x 141 in (358.1 x 358.1 cm).

“Abstraction didn't have to be limited to a kind of rectilinear geometry or even a simple curve geometry. It could have a geometry that had a narrative impact. In other words, you could tell a story with the shapes. It wouldn't be a literal story, but the shapes and the interaction of the shapes and colors would give you a narrative sense. You could have a sense of an abstract piece flowing along and being part of an action or activity.”

-Frank Stella 

On this day, May 12, Frank Stella was born in Malden Massachusetts and went to study history at Princeton University where he painted and majored in history. Shortly after he moved to New York in 1958 and started to visit art galleries. Originally he painted in an abstract expressionist style but as soon as he moved to New York he wanted to experiment and be innovative. His first experiments were the ‘black paintings’ which were also what  established his reputation. In these ‘black paintings’, Stella incorporated a symmetrical series of thin white stripes that replicated the canvas shape when seen against their black backgrounds. Several works from this series were then exhibited at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art, MoMA in 1959-60. 

Frank Stella (b. 1936), Point of Pines, 1959. Enamel on canvas. 84⅞ x 109½ in (215.5 x 278.1 cm).

During the early 1960s, Stella started to create more complex variations on the theme of the frame-determined design and used both metallic-coloured paints and irregularly shaped canvases on purpose. These irregularly shaped canvases were part of the Protractor series that dated from 1967-71. This group of paintings marked geometric and curvilinear shapes which also played with vivi and harmonious colours.