Artist of the day, May 11, 2024: Frank Stella, an American painter, sculptor (#2021)

Another big lost this week! R.I.P. Frank Stella!

Frank Stella (1936-2024), was anAmerican painter, and one of the most dominant and influential figures in abstract painting during the 1960s through the 1990s.

Frank Stella was born in Malden, Massachusetts. He attended the Phillips Academy in Andover (1950-1954), where he studied painting with Patrick Morgan. Stella graduated from Princeton University with a bachelor of arts degree in history in 1958. Frank Stella, an iconic figure of postwar American art, is considered the most influential painter of a generation that moved beyond Abstract Expressionism toward Minimalism. In his early work, Stella attempted to drain any external meaning or symbolism from painting, reducing his images to geometric form and eliminating illusionistic effects.

Frank Stella is best known for his use of geometric patterns and shapes. Arguably one of the most important living American artists, Stella painted with the intent to flatten surfaces and often chose shaped canvases, exploring Minimalism in his earlier works and graduating to maximalist paintings involving relief and sculptural elements in the 1970s. He was influenced by fellow American painter Jasper Johns after viewing his first solo exhibition. “No art is any good unless you can feel how it’s put together,” he once said. “By and large it’s the eye, the hand and if it’s any good, you feel the body. Most of the best stuff seems to be a complete gesture, the totality of the artist’s body; you can really lean on it.”

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Mr. Frank Stella

Hyena Stomp, 1962

 Ifafa II, 1964

 Untitled (Rabat), 1964

 Empress of India, 1965

 Effingham II, 1966

 Harran II, 1967

 Hatra I, 1967

Hiraqla-35, 1968

 Akht-i-Sulayman Variation I, 1969  from the Protractor Series

 Isfahan, 1979

Damascus Gate (Stretch Variation III) 1970

Khurasan Gate variation II, 1970

 River of ponds, 1971

Kamionka Strumilowa IV, 1972

 Art car BMW, 1976 detail

Then came a Dog and Bit the Cat, 1984

 La penna di hu, 1985

Gobba Zoppa and Collotorto, 1986

The Decanter, 1986

 Hooloomooloo IV, 1994

 Coxuria, 1997

At Sainte-Luce-Hoango, 1998

 Prinz Friedrich von Homburg, Ein Schauspiel, 3X, 1998

 k-54, 2008

 La penna di hu, 2009

 Redjang, 2009.

Retrospective K.81, 2009 combo (K.37 and K.43)

K.150, 2014

K. 304, 2014 - the making

 K. 304, 2014  Under snow

K. 304, 2014

Amsterdam, 2015