Frank Stella: Redefining the Limits of Painting

Frank Stella

b. 1936 | German/American | Oils; Acrylics; Mixed Media

One of today’s leading abstract painters, Stella is prolific and very varied—but a constant theme is investigating what paintings are and what they can be. His early work reduced painting to all but its most essential and impersonal properties: simple, flat, shaped, and monochrome canvases. He introduced pure, bright, hard-edge color with the aim of removing illusion and emotional reference.

Later, his work expanded into relief-like surfaces and sculptural constructions. He uses varied materials, from aluminum to felt and fiberglass. Stella pushes painting toward architecture and sculpture, creating works that project into space yet remain paintings. By making shape and color central, he questions traditional ideas about composition and representation.

Frank Stella

Frank Stella, Feneralia from the Imaginary places series, 1994–97, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, gift of Kenneth Tyler 2002.

Key Works: Six Mile Bottom, 1960 (London: Tate);Hyena Stomp, 1962 (Buffalo: Albright-Knox Art Gallery);Itata, 1964 (New York: Guggenheim Museum)