Editing Frank Stella (section)

===Late 1950s and early 1960s===
[[File:Jasper's Dilemma, 1962-1963, Frank Stella at NGA 2022.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|''Jasper's Dilemma'' (1962–1963) at the [[National Gallery of Art]] in 2022]]
After moving to New York City in the late 1950s, Stella began to create works which emphasized the picture-as-object. His visits to the art galleries of New York, where he was exposed to the abstract expressionist work of artists like [[Franz Kline]] and [[Jackson Pollock]], had exerted a great influence on his development as an artist.<ref name="Martone2016">{{cite book |editor1-last=Martone |editor1-first=Eric |title=Italian Americans: The History and Culture of a People |year=2016 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing USA |isbn=979-8-216-10559-6 |page=350 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=twPHEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT350}}</ref>

He created a series of paintings in 1958–1959 known as his "[[Black Paintings (Stella)|Black Paintings]]" which flouted conventional ideas of painterly composition. At age 22 in late 1958, he used commercial [[enamel paint]] and a house-painter's brush to paint black stripes of the same width and evenly spaced on bare canvas, leaving the thin strips of canvas between them unpainted and exposed, along with his pencil-and-ruler drawn guidelines.<ref name="Marzona2004">{{cite book |last1=Marzona |first1=Daniel |title=Minimal Art |year=2004 |publisher=Taschen |isbn=978-3-8228-3060-4 |pages=9–10 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hr-5GcN0F6kC&pg=PA9}}</ref> These paintings, his response to the Abstract Expressionist movement that grew in the years following World War II, were devoid of color and meant to lack any visual stimulation.<ref name="Greenberger2024">{{cite news |last1=Greenberger |first1=Alex |title=Frank Stella, Trailblazing Artist Who Pushed Abstraction to Its Limits, Dies at 87 |url=https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/frank-stella-dead-1234705995/ |work=ARTnews.com |date=4 May 2024 |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20240504211343/https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/frank-stella-dead-1234705995/ |archive-date=4 May 2024}}</ref>

''[[Die Fahne Hoch! (Frank Stella)|Die Fahne Hoch!]]'' (1959), one of the "Black Paintings" series, takes its name ("Hoist the Flag!"<ref name="Whitney2024">{{cite web |author1=Whitney Staff |title=Frank Stella {{!}} Die Fahne hoch! |url=https://whitney.org/collection/works/2964 |website=Whitney.org |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240505094931/https://whitney.org/collection/works/2964 |archive-date=May 5, 2024 |access-date=May 5, 2024 |url-status=live }}</ref> or "Raise the Flag!" in English) from the first line of the "[[Horst-Wessel-Lied]]",<ref name="Hopkins2000">{{cite book |last1=Hopkins |first1=David |title=After Modern Art 1945–2000 |year=2000 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-284234-3 |pages=135–136 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GKrnCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA135}}</ref> the anthem of the [[Nazi Party]]. According to Stella himself, the painting has similar proportions as flags used by that organization.<ref name="Salus2010">{{cite journal |last1=Salus |first1=Carol |title=Frank Stella's Polish Village Series and Related Works: Heritage and Alliance |journal=Shofar |date=2010 |volume=28 |issue=2 |page=142 |jstor=10.5703/shofar.28.2.139 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5703/shofar.28.2.139 |issn=0882-8539 |quote=The artist provided a number of factors involved in his selection of Die Fahne Hoch! With its title taken from the first line of the Horst Wessel song (''Die Fahne hoch! Die Reihen fest geschlossen!''), the Nazi Party anthem, this march song was sung at public meetings and used as a musical background for the Nuremburg {{sic}} rallies of the 1930s. Stella said for him it recalled a waving flag, adding: "The thing that stuck in my mind was the Nazi newsreels—that big draped swastika—the big hanging flag—has pretty much those dimensions."  Stella pointed out that the proportions of his canvas (10'1" x 6'1") are much the same as the large flags displayed by the Nazis. |access-date=May 5, 2024 |archive-date=September 21, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230921051059/https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5703/shofar.28.2.139 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Stella's work was a catalyst for the minimalist movement in the late 1950s; he stressed the properties of the materials he used in his paintings, disavowing any conception of art as a means of expressing emotion.<ref name="PérezArtMuseum2024"/> He made a splash in the New York art world in 1959 when his four black pinstripe paintings were shown in the ''Sixteen Americans'' exhibit at the [[Museum of Modern Art]],<ref name="Martone2016"/> along with works by [[Louise Nevelson]], [[Ellsworth Kelly]], [[Jasper Johns]], and [[Robert Rauschenberg]].<ref name="O'Grady2020"/> Taking a reductionist approach to his art, Stella said he sought to demonstrate that he considered every painting as "a flat surface with paint on it—nothing more".<ref name="D'Acierno1998">{{cite book |last1=D'Acierno |first1=Pellegrino |editor-last1=D'Acierno |editor-first1=Pellegrino | title=The Italian American Heritage: A Companion to Literature and Arts |year=1998 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-0-8153-0380-0 |pages=528–529 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Nevq7gnw-WgC&pg=PA528 |chapter=From Stella to Stella: Italian American Visual Culture and its Contribution to the Arts in America}}</ref> The same year, several of his paintings were included in the ''Three Young Americans'' showing at the [[Allen Memorial Art Museum]] at [[Oberlin College]].<ref name="Martone2016"/> A year later, his first gallery show at art dealer [[Leo Castelli]]'s New York gallery gained him few sales. Stella shared studio space with Hollis Frampton and Carl Andre, both of whom had attended Phillips Academy, and scrounged a living by renting [[cold-water flat]]s and painting houses.<ref name="O'Grady2020"/>

Stella repudiated all efforts by critics to interpret his work. In a 1964 radio broadcast of a discussion of contemporary art with fellow artists [[Donald Judd]] and [[Dan Flavin]],<ref name="Glazer1964">{{cite web |last1=Glazer |first1=Bruce |title=New nihilism or new art / moderated by Bruce Glazer. {{!}} Pacifica Radio Archives |url=https://www.pacificaradioarchives.org/recording/bb3394 |website=www.pacificaradioarchives.org |access-date=13 May 2024 |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20150325170905/http://www.pacificaradioarchives.org/recording/bb3394 |archive-date=25 March 2015 |date=1964}}</ref> he summarized his concerns as a painter with the words, "My painting is based on the fact that only what can be seen there ''is'' there. It really is an object... All I want anyone to get out of my paintings, and all I ever get out of them, is the fact that you can see the whole idea without any confusion.... What you see is what you see."<ref name="Glaser1995">{{cite book |last1=Glaser |last2=Bruce |editor1-last=Battcock |editor1-first=Gregory |title=Minimal Art: A Critical Anthology |date=1995 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-20147-7 |page=158 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lhMS8Ii73ZkC&pg=PA158 |chapter=Bruce Glaser: ''Questions to Stella and Judd''}}</ref> The much-quoted tautology, "What you see is what you see",<ref name="Marzona2004"/> became "the unofficial motto of the minimalist movement", according to the ''[[New York Times]]''.<ref name="Grimes2024">{{Cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/04/arts/frank-stella-dead.html |title=Frank Stella, Towering Artist and Master of Reinvention, Dies at 87 |date=May 4, 2024 |last=Grimes |first=William |work=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=May 4, 2024 |archive-date=May 4, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240504211012/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/04/arts/frank-stella-dead.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

From 1960, his works used [[shaped canvas]]es,<ref name="Cateforis2005">{{cite book |last1=Cateforis |first1=David |editor1-last=Janovy |editor1-first=Karen O. |editor2-last=Siedell |editor2-first=Daniel A. |title=Sculpture from the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery |year=2005 |publisher=U of Nebraska Press |isbn=978-0-8032-7629-1 |pages=196–198 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bs3rFfPLdOEC&pg=PA196}}</ref> developing in 1966 into more elaborate designs, as in the ''Irregular Polygon'' series (67).<ref name="Leider1970">{{cite magazine |last1=Leider |first1=Philip |title=Abstraction and Literalism: Reflections on Stella at the Modern |journal=Artforum |publisher=Artforum Media |date=April 1, 1970 |volume=8 |issue=8 |url=https://www.artforum.com/features/abstraction-and-literalism-reflections-on-stella-at-the-modern-210593/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231029080119/https://www.artforum.com/features/abstraction-and-literalism-reflections-on-stella-at-the-modern-210593/ |archive-date=October 29, 2023 |access-date=May 5, 2024 |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1961, Stella followed [[Barbara Rose]], later a well-known art critic,<ref name="Solomon2020">{{cite news |last1=Solomon |first1=Deborah |title=Barbara Rose, Critic and Historian of Modern Art, Dies at 84 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/27/arts/barbara-rose-dead.html |access-date=May 5, 2024 |work=The New York Times |date=December 27, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201227193141/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/27/arts/barbara-rose-dead.html |archive-date=December 27, 2020 |url-status=live }}</ref> to [[Pamplona, Spain]], where she had gone on a [[Fulbright fellowship]]; they married in London that November. Upon their return to New York, Rose and Stella moved into an apartment near [[Union Square, Manhattan|Union Square]] and had two children. After they split up in 1969, Rose began to reconsider her relationship with minimalism, and became a champion of less well-recognized painters.<ref name="Pobric2020">{{cite web |last1=Pobric |first1=Pac |title=Art Critic Barbara Rose, a Champion of Minimalism Whose Writings Crystallized Decades of Creativity, Has Died at 84 |url=https://news.artnet.com/art-world/barbara-rose-obituary-1934598 |website=Artnet News |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20201229084313/https://news.artnet.com/art-world/barbara-rose-obituary-1934598 |archive-date=29 December 2020 |date=28 December 2020}}</ref>