Art Lesson: Artist Frank Stella

Famous Mid-Century Painter Alive and Well and Living in Manhattan

You’ve probably seen his iconic geometric intertwining half-circles before, but didn’t know who he was. Meet Frank Stella, living legend, literally.

Originally hailing from Massachusetts, Stella moved to New York City in 1958 after graduating from Princeton, and quickly began to produce works that focused on graphic as subject, rather than a representation of some real-world object, person or scene.

After a visit to the Middle East in the early 1960’s, he created his groundbreaking paintings Protractor Series, each piece named for one of the circular cities he visited while abroad. Here he fully celebrates the painting as a flat surface, turning away from even a slight attempt at spatial illusion.

An art collector’s Manhattan apartment prominently displaying Stella’s Protractor

In the mid-1960’s, Stella began experimenting with printmaking, introducing new techniques, and utilizing different techniques to produce his pieces. In 1973, he had a print shop installed in his home in New York City.

Frank Stella became the youngest artist to be the subject of a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1970. He went on to experiment with relief, collage, and finally three-dimensional art forms, particularly free-standing sculptures in public spaces by the 1990’s.

In 2007, the Met’s Roof Garden was home to three of his sculpture installations as part of the exhibit, “Frank Stella: Painting into Architecture”

Frank Stella continues to work in New York. But it is his work done in the 1960’s and 70’s that defined him as a leader of the minimialist movement. In 2009, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama.

So now that you’re thoroughly impressed, what to do with this new knowledge?

A) Show off at art exhibits, public spaces and vintage shops by dropping ever so innocently, “Is that a Frank Stella circa 1970?”, like at the Vdara Hotel in Las Vegas:

Frank Stella’s “Damascus Gate Variation I” 1969 in the Vdara Hotel, Las Vegas

B) Pick up your own piece of living art history, like this poster from art.com for a cool $129:

C) Or, pick me up a copy of the original exhibition catalog from MOMA’s 1970 show for Christmas. I’m just saying, I’ve been an angel all year…

…xoxo

Images via the San Francisco Chronicle, New York Magazine, the New York Times, Las Vegas Sun, and art.com.

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