1stDibs ExpertOctober 24, 2024
Frank Stella used a variety of techniques. The American artist eschewed sketches for his paintings and often used nontraditional materials, like house paint. In 1960, he began introducing color into his work and using unconventionally shaped canvases to complement his compositions. Following a solo show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1970, Stella began working in three dimensions, adding relief elements to paintings, which could be considered wall-mounted sculptures. Stella’s 1970–73 “Polish Village” series was inspired by documentary photographs and architectural drawings of Polish synagogues that had been destroyed by the 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 played a prominent role. During this period, Stella embraced a new, exuberant style exemplified in his piece La Scienza della Fiacca. In addition to paintings and sculptural works, the artist also produced prints using lithography, serigraphy, etching and offset lithography techniques. Explore an assortment of Frank Stella art on 1stDibs.
