The Waves: A Squeeze of the Hand
View Similar Items
Frank StellaThe Waves: A Squeeze of the Hand1988
1988
About the Item
- Creator:Frank Stella (1936, American)
- Creation Year:1988
- Dimensions:Height: 73.08 in (185.6 cm)Width: 54.73 in (139 cm)
- More Editions & Sizes:Edition of 60Price: $34,557
- Medium:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:London, GB
- Reference Number:Seller: 1030531stDibs: LU4708795602
Frank Stella
Frank Stella is one of the central figures in postwar American art. A proponent of minimalism and non-representational abstraction, Stella is a painter, printmaker and sculptor. A native of Massachusetts, he 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, he 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 a 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 his 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, he 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 museum collections 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 a collection of Frank Stella's art on 1stDibs.
- Ahab, from The Waves SeriesBy Frank StellaLocated in London, GBScreenprint, lithograph and linocut in colours with collage, marbling and hand-colouring, 1989, on T. H. Saunders and Somerset papers, signed and dated ‘88’ in pencil, numbered 'AP I...Category
1980s Abstract Abstract Prints
MaterialsLithograph, Screen
- RiallaroBy Frank StellaLocated in London, GBEtching, aquatint, collagraph, lithograph and screenprint in colours, 1995, from Frank Stella's series Imaginary Places. Titled after an imaginary archipelago in John Macmillan Brown...Category
Late 20th Century Abstract Prints
MaterialsScreen
$34,557 - Mary, MaryBy Helen FrankenthalerLocated in London, GBScreenprint and offset lithograph in colours, 1987, on wove paper, signed in pencil by the artist, one of 10 printer's proofs, aside from standard edition of 72, published by Lincoln...Category
Late 20th Century Abstract Abstract Prints
MaterialsOffset, Screen
- DespairiaBy Frank StellaLocated in London, GBOver a period of four years, Stella created a body of prints whose titles all came from ‘The Dictionary of Imaginary Places’ by Alberto Mangual and Gianni Guadalupi. Each work from t...Category
1990s Abstract Abstract Prints
MaterialsEngraving, Mezzotint, Etching, Aquatint, Lithograph, Screen
$49,915 - Video DiscsBy Peter SedgleyLocated in London, GBComplete set of six kinetic screenprints, 1969, on aluminium, signed, titled, dated 1970 and numbered from the edition of 100 incised verso, published by Editions Alecto, London, eac...Category
1970s Kinetic Abstract Prints
MaterialsScreen
- Forms in a FlurryBy Barbara HepworthLocated in London, GBScreenprint in colours, 1969-70, signed in pencil and numbered from the edition of 60 (total edition includes ten artist's proofs) published by Marlborough AG Schellenberg, FL, 77.7 ...Category
1960s Abstract Abstract Prints
MaterialsScreen
- Rampant Slip, 2017. Series of 15 unique printsLocated in Tuscany, PisaFull title: Rampant Slip— Danced Himself to Death [MJ] for the future of r---e---a---l---l--y REAL un-freedom One of fifteen unique screenprints and monoprints with artist applied v...Category
2010s Contemporary Abstract Prints
MaterialsMonoprint, Screen
- "Composition Cinétique"By Victor VasarelyLocated in Hinsdale, ILVictor Vasarely (1906 – 1997) Composition Cinétique Serigraph in colors on wove paper, 1970 29 x...Category
1970s Op Art Abstract Prints
MaterialsScreen
- "Grids and Color Plate #42" by Sol LewittBy Sol LeWittLocated in Hinsdale, ILSOL LEWITT (1928 – 2007) "Grids and Color Plate #42" Silkscreen in colors on Arches 88 paper, c. 1979 Impression 8 of an edition of 10 w...Category
1970s Minimalist Abstract Prints
MaterialsScreen
- "Grids and Color Plate #40" by Sol LewittBy Sol LeWittLocated in Hinsdale, ILSOL LEWITT (1928 – 2007) Grids and Color Plate #40 Silkscreen in colors on Arches 88 paper, c. 1979 Impression 8 of an edition of 10 wit...Category
1970s Minimalist Abstract Prints
MaterialsScreen
- Five Pointed StarBy Sol LeWittLocated in Hinsdale, ILSol Lewitt (1928 – 2007) Five Pointed Star Color Screenprint on Arches wove paper, c. 1992 Sheet size: 32 3/4” x 22 ¼” Signed by artist and numbered Edition 104 of 250] Printed by Keizo Tasaka, Watanabe Studio, Ltd., Brooklyn Published by Puma Trading, Paris or Editiones Catalanes, Barcelona, for the International Olympic Committee, with blind stamp lower center Sol LeWitt was born on September 9th, 1928, in Hartford, Connecticut to Eastern European immigrants. LeWitt received a BFA from Syracuse University in 1949 (where he made his first prints) and then was drafted in the Korean War in 1951. During his service, he made posters for the Special Services and spent time in Japan, where he bought the first works that became the basis of a large personal art collection. In 1953, he moved to New York City, where he studied at the Cartoonists and Illustrators School (now the School of Visual Arts) and worked for Seventeen Magazine...Category
1990s Minimalist Abstract Prints
MaterialsScreen
- "Grids and Color Plate #44" by Sol LewittBy Sol LeWittLocated in Hinsdale, ILSOL LEWITT (1928 – 2007) Grids and Color Plate #40 Silkscreen in colors on Arches 88 paper, c. 1979 Impression 8 of an edition of 10 wit...Category
1970s Minimalist Abstract Prints
MaterialsScreen
Recently Viewed
View AllRead More
Get to Know the Artists Who Led the Op Art Movement
In the 1960s and '70s, the hypnotic creations of Op artists went mainstream and influenced the look of pop culture.
Shapero Modern’s Director Tells Us All about 20th-Century Prints
Tabitha Philpott-Kent knows a lot of art multiples. Here, the London gallery director talks about what makes printmaking so fabulous.