Why is Frank Stella important?

Frank Stella is important because he was one of the central figures in postwar American art and influenced later artists as a proponent of minimalism and non-representational abstraction. Stella felt that paintings on canvas were objects in their own right, like sculptures. This led him to reject certain formal conventions, eschewing sketches and often using nontraditional materials, like house paint. His approach to art impacted the work of Clement Greenberg, Carl Andre, Kenneth Noland and many others. Find a collection of Frank Stella art on 1stDibs.

Frank Stella Signed

Metal Relief Sculpture

Materials

Lithograph, Linocut, Screen

Frank StellaEusaspia, 1998, 1998

$19,000

Eusaspia, 1998

By Frank Stella

Located in Palo Alto, CA

Hand-signed by Frank Stella in pencil in the lower right, this work is numbered from an edition of 55 in pencil in the lower right.

Category

1990s Abstract Geometric Abstract Prints

Materials

Lithograph

Frank StellaPalmito Ranch, from Benjamin Moore Series, 1971

$8,900

Palmito Ranch, from Benjamin Moore Series

By Frank Stella

Located in BRUCE, ACT

Hand-signed by Frank Stella (1936 - 2024) in pencil in the lower right Numbered 91/100 in pencil in the lower right.

Category

1970s Abstract Prints

Paper, Screen

Recent Sales

Frank Stella Signed Mounted Scarf

Unavailable

H 43.75 in W 51.25 in D 1 in

Frank Stella Signed Mounted Scarf

By Frank Stella

Located in Bronx, NY

Colorful abstract impressionistic silk scarf wall decoration mounted on wood frame, we have an unmatched abstract Impressionism in design second piece also the same size.

Category

Late 20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Decorative Art

Materials

Silk

Original, Frank Stella Painting

Sold

H 50 in W 50 in

Original, Frank Stella Painting

By Frank Stella

Located in Los Angeles, CA

Fabulous, mixed media picture by famous American artist, Frank Stella. Signed and dated on the lower left.

Category

Late 20th Century American Paintings

Materials

Mixed Media, Paper

Frank StellaAfter Frank Stella-Kastura-HAND SIGNED, 1982

Sold

H 38 in W 23 in

After Frank Stella-Kastura-HAND SIGNED

By Frank Stella

Located in Brooklyn, NY

Poster for a show titled Metal Reliefs at the Addison Gallery of American Art, October 23- December 17, 1982 Hand signed in bottom left corner of image in pen.

Category

20th Century Contemporary Prints and Multiples

Materials

Offset

Limanora Silkscreen Framed and Signed by Frank Stella Dated 1994

Sold

H 29 in W 26 in D 1.5 in

Limanora Silkscreen Framed and Signed by Frank Stella Dated 1994

By Frank Stella

Located in Keego Harbor, MI

For your consideration is a fabulous, framed lithograph, signed by Frank Stella, numbered 11/75 and dated 1994.

Silk

Original Frank Stella Abstract Signed Lithograph 9/30, 1993

Sold

H 41 in W 34.25 in D 2 in

Original Frank Stella Abstract Signed Lithograph 9/30, 1993

By Frank Stella

Located in Keego Harbor, MI

For your consideration is an abstract signed lithography 9/30 by the renowned artist Frank Stella.

Category

1990s American Mid-Century Modern Contemporary Art

Offset

Frank Stella Abstract Artist Metropolitan Museum of Art Book, 1970, New York

$675

H 10.38 in W 9.25 in D 0.75 in

Frank Stella Abstract Artist Metropolitan Museum of Art Book, 1970, New York

By Frank Stella

Located in New York, NY

A hard-cover book with dust-jacket on abstract American artist Frank Stella, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1970, New York, NY. This book presents a decade of Sella's work from 1959 - 1...

Category

Vintage 1970s American Books

Materials

Paper

Frank StellaVintage Frank Stella poster Democratic Convention 1980 colorful Pop political, 1980

$175

H 37 in W 27 in

Vintage Frank Stella poster Democratic Convention 1980 colorful Pop political

By Frank Stella

Located in New York, NY

Colorful vintage poster for the 1980 Democratic National Convention, held in Madison Square Garden in New York.Concentric lines of orange and bright green interweave with strokes of ...

Category

1980s Pop Art Abstract Prints

Chrome, Metal

Get Updated with New Arrivals

Save "Frank Stella Signed", and we’ll notify you when there are new listings in this category.

Frank Stella Signed For Sale on 1stDibs

Surely you’ll find the exact frank stella signed you’re seeking on 1stDibs — we’ve got a vast assortment for sale. There are many Pop Art and Abstract versions of these works for sale. Making the right choice when shopping for a frank stella signed may mean carefully reviewing examples of this item dating from different eras — you can find an early iteration of this piece from the 20th Century and a newer version made as recently as the 20th Century. If you’re looking to add a frank stella signed to create new energy in an otherwise neutral space in your home, you can find a work on 1stDibs that features elements of beige, gray, green, white and more. Finding an appealing frank stella signed — no matter the origin — is easy, but Frank Stella, Jack Mitchell and (after) Frank Stella each produced popular versions that are worth a look. Frequently made by artists working in lithograph and silver gelatin print, these artworks are unique and have attracted attention over the years.

How Much is a Frank Stella Signed?

A frank stella signed can differ in price owing to various characteristics — the average selling price for items in our inventory is $1,500, while the lowest priced sells for $450 and the highest can go for as much as $17,000.

Frank Stella for sale on 1stDibs

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.

Finding the Right Prints-works-on-paper for You

Decorating with fine art prints — whether they’re figurative prints, abstract prints or another variety — has always been a practical way of bringing a space to life as well as bringing works by an artist you love into your home.

Pursued in the 1960s and ’70s, largely by Pop artists drawn to its associations with mass production, advertising, packaging and seriality, as well as those challenging the primacy of the Abstract Expressionist brushstroke, printmaking was embraced in the 1980s by painters and conceptual artists ranging from David Salle and Elizabeth Murray to Adrian Piper and Sherrie Levine.

Printmaking is the transfer of an image from one surface to another. An artist takes a material like stone, metal, wood or wax, carves, incises, draws or otherwise marks it with an image, inks or paints it and then transfers the image to a piece of paper or other material.

Fine art prints are frequently confused with their more commercial counterparts. After all, our closest connection to the printed image is through mass-produced newspapers, magazines and books, and many people don’t realize that even though prints are editions, they start with an original image created by an artist with the intent of reproducing it in a small batch. Fine art prints are created in strictly limited editions — 20 or 30 or maybe 50 — and are always based on an image created specifically to be made into an edition.

Many people think of revered Dutch artist Rembrandt as a painter but may not know that he was a printmaker as well. His prints have been preserved in time along with the work of other celebrated printmakers such as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Andy Warhol. These fine art prints are still highly sought after by collectors.

“It’s another tool in the artist’s toolbox, just like painting or sculpture or anything else that an artist uses in the service of mark making or expressing him- or herself,” says International Fine Print Dealers Association (IFPDA) vice president Betsy Senior, of New York’s Betsy Senior Fine Art, Inc.

Because artist’s editions tend to be more affordable and available than his or her unique works, they’re more accessible and can be a great opportunity to bring a variety of colors, textures and shapes into a space.

For tight corners, select small fine art prints as opposed to the oversized bold piece you’ll hang as a focal point in the dining area. But be careful not to choose something that is too big for your space. And feel free to lean into it if need be — not every work needs picture-hanging hooks. Leaning a larger fine art print against the wall behind a bookcase can add a stylish installation-type dynamic to your living room. (Read more about how to arrange wall art here.)

Find fine art prints for sale on 1stDibs today.

Questions About Frank Stella

Why is Frank Stella important?
1 Answer
1stDibs ExpertNovember 20, 2024
Frank Stella is important because he was one of the central figures in postwar American art and influenced later artists as a proponent of minimalism and non-representational abstraction. Stella felt that paintings on canvas were objects in their own right, like sculptures. This led him to reject certain formal conventions, eschewing sketches and often using nontraditional materials, like house paint. His approach to art impacted the work of Clement Greenberg, Carl Andre, Kenneth Noland and many others. Find a collection of Frank Stella art on 1stDibs.