Eskimo Curlew
View Similar Items
Frank StellaEskimo Curlew1977
1977
About the Item
- Creator:Frank Stella (1936, American)
- Creation Year:1977
- Dimensions:Height: 18 in (45.72 cm)Width: 23 in (58.42 cm)Depth: 5.5 in (13.97 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:New York, NY
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU1062451943
Frank Stella
Frank Stella was one of the central figures in postwar American art. A proponent of minimalism and non-representational abstraction, Stella was a painter, printmaker and sculptor.
A native of Massachusetts, Stella attended Phillips Academy in Andover and earned a BA from Princeton, where he studied art and color theory with Josef Albers and Hans Hofmann. Stella frequented New York galleries as a student and was intrigued by the work of Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline, both of whom were at the height of their creative powers in the late 1950s.
After moving to New York in 1958, Stella gravitated toward the geometric abstraction and restrained painting style of Barnett Newman and Jasper Johns.
Johns’s flat, graphic images of common objects such as targets and flags prompt viewers to question the essential nature of representation and whether these pictures are really paintings or simply new iterations of the items themselves. Stella pushed Johns’s reasoning further, considering paintings on canvas as objects in their own right, like sculptures, rather than representations. This led him to reject certain formal conventions, eschewing sketches and often using nontraditional materials, like house paint.
In 1959, Stella created his “Black Paintings,” series, in which bands of black paint are separated by thin, precise stripes of bare canvas. At a time when contemporary painting was all about wild gestures, thick paint and formal abandon, these pieces created a sensation. That same year, Stella's work was included in the exhibition "Sixteen Americans" at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and he joined the roster of artists represented by Leo Castelli Gallery. In 1960, he began introducing color into his work and using unconventionally shaped canvases to complement his compositions.
In his “Eccentric Polygon” series, from 1965 and ‘66, Stella embraces asymmetry and bold color, creating forms delineated by painted fields and by the edges of the canvas. This series was followed by the 1967–70 “Protractor” series, characterized by colorful circles and arcs. Named after the ancient cities whose circular plans Stella had noticed while traveling in the Middle East during the 1960s, these works usually comprised several canvases set flush against one another so that the geometric figures in each section came together in a larger, more complex whole.
Also in the mid-1960s, Stella started exploring printmaking, initially working with Kenneth Tyler, of Gemini G.E.L., and later installing printing equipment in his own studio. In 1968, he created the “V” series of lithographs, which included the print Quathlamba I. Following a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1970, Stella began working in three dimensions, adding relief elements to paintings, which could almost be considered wall-mounted sculptures.
Stella’s 1970–73 “Polish Village” series was inspired by documentary photos and architectural drawings of Polish synagogues that had been destroyed by Nazis during World War II. The resulting works — composed primarily of paint and cloth on plywood — are more rugged and less polished than his previous series.
Herman Melville's Moby Dick was Stella's muse for a series of three- dimensional works he created in the 1980s in which waveforms, architectural elements and Platonic solids play a prominent role. During this period, Stella embraced a new, exuberant style that is exemplified in "La Scienza della Fiacca."
In 1997, the artist oversaw the creation of the Stella Project, a 5,000-square-foot work inside the Moores Opera House at the University of Houston. A large free-standing sculpture by Stella stands outside the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
Stella’s work is in the collections of numerous important museums around the world, including New York’s Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Menil Collection, in Houston; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, in Washington, D.C.; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Obama in 2009, and was given the Lifetime Achievement Award in Contemporary Sculpture by the International Sculpture Center in 2011.
Find original Frank Stella art for sale on 1stDibs.
- UntitledBy Daniel Alexander GorskiLocated in New York, NYDANIEL GORSKI Untitled, 1963 Acrylic on canvas (Diptych) 80 x 45 inchesCategory
1960s Abstract Geometric Abstract Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Acrylic
Price Upon Request - UntitledBy Daniel Alexander GorskiLocated in New York, NYDANIEL GORSKI Untitled, 1964 Acrylic on canvas mounted on board 90 x 90 inchesCategory
1960s Abstract Geometric Abstract Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Acrylic, Board
Price Upon Request - Silver VoyageBy Cleve GrayLocated in New York, NYCLEVE GRAY Silver Voyage, 1967 Acrylic on canvas with silver enamel 79 x 80 inches Signed, titled and datedCategory
1960s Abstract Abstract Paintings
MaterialsEnamel
Price Upon Request - Silver SongBy Cleve GrayLocated in New York, NYCLEVE GRAY Silver Song, 1967 Acrylic on canvas with aluminum paint and bronze 101 x 80 inches Signed, titled and datedCategory
1960s Abstract Abstract Paintings
MaterialsEnamel
Price Upon Request - Radiant BlueBy Richard AnuszkiewiczLocated in New York, NYRichard Anuszkiewicz Radiant Blue 1977 - 2017 30 x 30 inches acrylic on canvasCategory
1970s Abstract Geometric Abstract Paintings
MaterialsAcrylic
Price Upon Request - Ceres IBy Cleve GrayLocated in New York, NYCleve Gray Ceres 1, 1966 Greece Series Acrylic on canvas 25 1/2 x 19 3/4 inchesCategory
1960s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Acrylic
$6,000
- Santa Rosa, aftermathBy Jenny DayLocated in New Orleans, LA[Tucson, AZ / Santa Fe, NM ::: b. 1981] BIO JENNY DAY (b.1981) is a painter who divides her time between Tucson, Arizona and Santa Fe, New Mexico. She earned an MFA in Painting ...Category
2010s Abstract Abstract Paintings
MaterialsCrayon, Glitter, Spray Paint, Acrylic, Pencil
- View all 14 commentsBy Jenny DayLocated in New Orleans, LA[Tucson, AZ / Santa Fe, NM ::: b. 1981] BIO JENNY DAY (b.1981) is a painter who divides her time between Tucson, Arizona and Santa Fe, New Mexico. She earned an MFA in Painting ...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Mixed Media
MaterialsCrayon, Glitter, Spray Paint, Acrylic, Pencil
- 7:15 esBy Jenny DayLocated in New Orleans, LA[Tucson, AZ / Santa Fe, NM ::: b. 1981] BIO JENNY DAY (b.1981) is a painter who divides her time between Tucson, Arizona and Santa Fe, New Mexico. She earned an MFA in Painting ...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Mixed Media
MaterialsCrayon, Glitter, Spray Paint, Acrylic, Pencil
$9,375 - FinBy Jenny DayLocated in New Orleans, LA[Tucson, AZ / Santa Fe, NM ::: b. 1981] BIO JENNY DAY (b.1981) is a painter who divides her time between Tucson, Arizona and Santa Fe, New Mexico. She earned an MFA in Painting ...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Abstract Paintings
MaterialsCrayon, Glitter, Spray Paint, Acrylic
$9,375 - Hybla Fair BedrockLocated in Dallas, TXDerived from photographs of subsistence craters formed in the aftermath of underground atomic tests, in the creation of Hybla Fair Bedrock, from the Bedrock Underground Tests series,...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Geometric Abstract Paintings
MaterialsWood, Glitter, Acrylic, Permanent Marker
- Obar BedrockLocated in Dallas, TXDerived from photographs of subsistence craters formed in the aftermath of underground atomic tests, in the creation of Obar Bedrock, from the Bedrock Underground Tests series, I use...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Geometric Abstract Paintings
MaterialsWood, Glitter, Acrylic, Permanent Marker