Frank StellaThe Funeral (Dome) From Moby Dick Domes, 19921992
1992
About the Item
- Creator:Frank Stella (1936, American)
- Creation Year:1992
- Dimensions:Height: 73.5 in (186.69 cm)Width: 53 in (134.62 cm)Depth: 6 in (15.24 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Palo Alto, CA
- Reference Number:
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.
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Ships From: Palo Alto, CA
- Return PolicyA return for this item may be initiated within 7 days of delivery.
- Untitled, 1985By Sam FrancisLocated in Palo Alto, CAThis aquatint is hand-signed by Sam Francis (California, 1923- California, 1994) in pencil in the lower right and is a unique color trial proof aside from the edition of 30. Francis...Category
1980s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Prints
MaterialsAquatint
- Tri-Color IIBy Richard DiebenkornLocated in Palo Alto, CAChuck Close Self Portrait, 2012 is hand-signed by Chuck Close (Washington, 1940 - New York, 2021) in pencil in the lower right margin and is ...Category
1980s Abstract Expressionist Figurative Prints
MaterialsEtching, Aquatint
- L.A.S.F. #3By Ed RuschaLocated in Palo Alto, CACreated in 2003, this color soft-ground etching is hand-signed by Ed Ruscha (Nebraska, 1937 - ) in pencil in the lower right margin. Numbered from the edition of 35 in pencil in the ...Category
Early 2000s Abstract Expressionist Figurative Prints
MaterialsEtching
- York Factory IIBy Frank StellaLocated in Palo Alto, CACreated in 1974, this screenprint on Arches black cover paper is hand signed and dated by Frank Stella (Massachusetts, 1936 - ) in pencil on verso and is numbered from the edition o...Category
1970s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Prints
MaterialsScreen
- People's Jade, 1971By Sam FrancisLocated in Palo Alto, CACreated in 1971, Sam Francis People's Jade, 1971 is a color lithograph on Strathmore 100 percent rag paper hand signed by Sam Francis (San Mateo, 1923- Santa Monica, 1994) in pencil ...Category
1970s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Untitled, 1963By Sam FrancisLocated in Palo Alto, CACreated circa 1963, this color lithograph on Rives BFK paper is hand signed by Sam Francis in pencil in the lower right and inscribed “Special Proof Marlene” in pencil in the lower m...Category
1960s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Large Italian Aquatint Etching Francesco Clemente Neo Expressionist Avant GardeBy Francesco ClementeLocated in Surfside, FLFrancesco Clemente (Italian b. 1952), 'This side up / Telemone #2, 1981 Medium: Intaglio hard ground etching, color aquatint, drypoint, and soft-ground etching with chine collé (ha...Category
1980s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Prints
MaterialsDrypoint, Etching, Aquatint, Intaglio
- 'Flight to Tomorrow' — Mid-Century American Modernism — Atelier 17By Minna CitronLocated in Myrtle Beach, SCMinna Citron, 'Flight to Tomorrow', aquatint and engraving, edition unknown but small, 1948. Signed, titled, dated, and annotated 'engr & aqua' in pencil. A superb, richly-inked impression with selectively wiped plate tone, on heavy cream wove paper, the full sheet with margins (1 3/4 to 3 1/2 inches), in excellent condition. Image size 6 7/8 x 8 7/16 inches (175 x 214 mm); sheet size 11 1/8 x 14 7/8 inches (283 x 378 mm). Matted to museum standards, unframed. Literature: The Women of Atelier 17, Modernist Printmaking in MidCentury New York, Christina Weyl, Yale University Press, 2019, p. 186. Collections: Davis Museum (Wellesley), Five Colleges and Historic Deerfield Museum Consortium, Harvard Art Museums, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Palmer Museum of Art (Penn State...Category
1940s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Prints
MaterialsEngraving, Aquatint
- Dark Landscape (abstract expressionist)By Gabor F. PeterdiLocated in Wilton Manors, FLGabor Peterdi (1915-2001). Dark Landscape, 1958. Etching, engraving and aquatint with five stenciled colors. Image measures 20 x 24 inches. Signed, date...Category
Mid-20th Century Abstract Expressionist Abstract Prints
MaterialsEngraving, Etching, Aquatint
- Buoy Landscape IV, Mixed media signed/n limited edition Ab Ex relief printBy Sam GilliamLocated in New York, NYSam Gilliam Buoy Landscape IV, 1982 Color relief print, etching, screenprint, drypoint, aquatint and roulette all from deeply etched copper plates, on handmade wove paper 31 1/2 × 24 inches Hand signed and numbered 3/25 in graphite pencil Hand-signed by artist, Signed by artist, numbered, and dated in pencil and blind-stamped by printer-publisher on lower right, titled in pencil on lower left, recto Unframed with elegant deckled edges Rare vintage intaglio and relief, all from deeply etched copper plates. Other works from this series are in the permanent collections of major museums & institutions like the Smithsonian, so they are quite scarce on the open market. Steven M. Andersen (Printer) Philip Barber (Printer) Hang Nguyen (Printer) Stephanie Nowack (Printer) Michael Reid (Printer) Daniel Rounds (Printer) Vermillion Editions Limited (Publisher) Sam Gilliam Biography: Sam Gilliam was one of the great innovators in postwar American painting. He emerged from the Washington, D.C. scene in the mid 1960s with works that elaborated upon and disrupted the ethos of Color School painting. A series of formal breakthroughs would soon result in his canonical Drape paintings, which expanded upon the tenets of Abstract Expressionism in entirely new ways. Suspending stretcherless lengths of painted canvas from the walls or ceilings of exhibition spaces, Gilliam transformed his medium and the contexts in which it was viewed. As an artist in the nation’s capital at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, this was not merely an aesthetic proposition; it was a way of defining art’s role in a society undergoing dramatic change. Gilliam pursued a pioneering course in which experimentation was the only constant. Inspired by the improvisatory ethos of jazz, his lyrical abstractions took on an increasing variety of forms, moods, and materials. In addition to a traveling retrospective organized by the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. in 2005, Sam Gilliam was the subject of solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1971); The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (1982); Whitney Museum of American Art, Philip Morris Branch, New York (1993); J.B. Speed Memorial Museum, Louisville, Kentucky (1996); Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. (2011); and Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland (2018), among many other institutions. A semi-permanent installation of Gilliam’s paintings opened at Dia:Beacon in August 2019. His work is included in over fifty public collections, including those of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Tate Modern, London; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and the Art Institute of Chicago. Sam Gilliam, Green April, 1969, acrylic on canvas, 98 x 271 x 3 7/8 inches (248.9 x 688.3 x 9.8 cm), Collection of Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel, Switzerland, Courtesy of David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles, photography by Lee Thompson...Category
1980s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Prints
MaterialsMixed Media, Pencil, Graphite, Drypoint, Etching, Aquatint, Screen
- Soho DreamsBy Helen FrankenthalerLocated in New York, NY1987 Color etching, aquatint, drypoint Sheet: 15 3/4 x 18 3/4 in. Edition of 71 Signed, dated and numbered in pencil, lower marginCategory
1980s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Prints
MaterialsDrypoint, Etching, Aquatint
- Soho DreamsBy Helen FrankenthalerLocated in New York, NY1987 Etching, aquatint and drypoint in colors, on wove paper Sheet: 15 3/4 x 18 3/4 in. Edition of 71 Signed, dated and numbered in pencil, lower marginCategory
1980s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Prints
MaterialsPaper, Drypoint, Etching, Aquatint