Editing Frank Stella

{{Short description|American artist (1936–2024)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=May 2024}}
{{Infobox artist
| name          = Frank Stella
| image         = Frank Stella 2012.jpg
| image_size    =
| caption       = Stella in 2012
| birth_name    = Frank Philip Stella
| birth_date    = {{Birth date|1936|05|12}}
| birth_place   = [[Malden, Massachusetts]], U.S.
| death_date    = {{Death date and age|2024|05|04|1936|05|12}}
| death_place   = New York City, U.S.
| education     = [[Princeton University]]
| known_for     = {{hlist|Painter|[[printmaker]]|sculpture|architect}}
| training      =
| movement      = {{hlist|[[Modernism]]|[[minimal art]]|[[abstract expressionism]]|[[geometric abstraction]]|[[abstract illusionism]]|[[lyrical abstraction]]|[[hard-edge painting]]|[[shaped canvas]] painting|[[color field painting]]}}
| works         =
| patrons       =
| awards        = {{ubli|{{awd|[[Charles Eliot Norton Lectures]]|1984|Working Space||[[Harvard University Press|Harvard University]]}}|{{awd|[[National Medal of Arts]]|2009}}|{{awd|Lifetime Achievement Award in Contemporary Sculpture|2011|||[[International Sculpture Center]]}}}}
}}

'''Frank Philip Stella''' (May 12, 1936 – May 4, 2024) was an American painter, sculptor, and [[printmaker]], noted for his work in the areas of [[minimalism]] and [[post-painterly abstraction]]. He lived and worked in New York City for much of his career before moving his studio to [[Rock Tavern, New York]]. Stella's work catalyzed the minimalist movement in the late 1950s. He moved to New York City in the late 1950s, where he created works which emphasized the picture-as-object. These  were influenced by the abstract expressionist work of artists like [[Franz Kline]] and [[Jackson Pollock]]. He developed a reductionist approach to his art, saying he wanted to demonstrate that for him, every painting is "a flat surface with paint on it—nothing more", and disavowed conceptions of art as a means of expressing emotion. He won notice in the New York [[art world]] in 1959 when his four black pinstripe paintings were shown at the [[Museum of Modern Art]]. Stella was a recipient of the [[National Medal of Arts]] in 2009 and the Lifetime Achievement Award in Contemporary Sculpture by the [[International Sculpture Center]] in 2011.

==Biography==
Frank Stella was born in [[Malden, Massachusetts]], on May 12, 1936, to first-generation Italian-American parents, as the oldest of their three children.<ref name="Artstory2024">{{cite web |url=http://www.theartstory.org/artist-stella-frank.htm |title=Frank Stella Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works |date=2024 |publisher=The Art Story |access-date=May 25, 2012 |archive-date=May 6, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190506192117/https://www.theartstory.org/artist-stella-frank.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> His grandparents on both sides had immigrated to the United States at the turn of the 20th century from Sicily. His father, Frank Sr., was a [[gynecologist]], and his mother Constance (née Santonelli) was a housewife and artist<ref name="Darwent2024">{{cite news |last1=Darwent |first1=Charles |title=Frank Stella Obituary |url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/may/05/frank-stella-obituary |access-date=May 6, 2024 |work=The Guardian |date=May 5, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240505140609/https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/may/05/frank-stella-obituary |archive-date=May 5, 2024 |url-status=live }}</ref> who attended fashion school and later took up landscape painting.<ref name="Solomon2015">{{cite news |last1=Solomon |first1=Deborah |title=The Whitney Taps Frank Stella for an Inaugural Retrospective at Its New Home |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/arts/design/the-whitney-taps-frank-stella-for-an-inaugural-retrospective-at-its-new-home.html |access-date=May 6, 2024 |work=The New York Times |date=September 7, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240222113745/https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/arts/design/the-whitney-taps-frank-stella-for-an-inaugural-retrospective-at-its-new-home.html |archive-date=February 22, 2024 |url-status=live }}</ref> His father painted houses to pay his way through medical school, with young Stella as his helper. Many years later he told an interviewer, "My father would make me sand the floor; we had to do the sanding and scraping before you could hold the brush and then paint on the wall. So it was that kind of apprenticeship and familiarity."<ref name="O'Grady2020">{{cite news |last1=O'Grady |first1=Megan |title=The Constellation of Frank Stella |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/t-magazine/frank-stella.html |access-date=1 June 2024 |work=The New York Times |date=18 March 2020 |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20200318151003/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/t-magazine/frank-stella.html |archive-date=18 March 2020}}</ref>

Stella went to high school at [[Phillips Academy]] in [[Andover, Massachusetts]],<ref name="Schjeldahl2015">{{cite magazine |last1=Schjeldahl |first1=Peter |title=Frank Stella's Big Ideas |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/09/big-ideas-the-art-world-peter-schjeldahl |access-date=30 May 2024 |magazine=The New Yorker |date=1 November 2015 |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20151105112703/http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/09/big-ideas-the-art-world-peter-schjeldahl |archive-date=5 November 2015}}</ref><ref name="Jebb2024"/> where [[Carl Andre]], later to become a minimalist sculptor, was in the class ahead of him, but Andre said they never actually met.<ref name="Tomkins2011">{{cite magazine |last1=Tomkins |first1=Calvin |title=The Materialist |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/12/05/the-materialist |access-date=30 May 2024 |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20141019050324/http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/12/05/the-materialist |archive-date=19 October 2014 |magazine=The New Yorker |date=27 November 2011}}</ref> In his sophomore year, the abstractionist Patrick Morgan, a teacher at the school, began teaching Stella how to paint. At this time Stella was particularly affected by the work of the artist [[Josef Albers]], a [[Bauhaus]] color theorist, and [[Hans Hofmann]], an influential proto-Abstract Expressionist. After entering [[Princeton University]] where he majored in history, played lacrosse and wrestled,<ref name="O'Grady2020"/> Stella took art courses and was introduced to the New York art scene by painter [[Stephen Greene (artist)|Stephen Greene]] and art historian [[William C. Seitz]], professors at the school who brought him to exhibitions in the city. His work was influenced by [[abstract expressionism]].<ref name="Artstory2024"/>

In the 1970s, he moved into [[NoHo]] in Manhattan in New York City.<ref name="auto2">Kenneth T. Jackson, Lisa Keller, Nancy Flood (2010). [https://books.google.com/books?id=lI5ERUmHf3YC&dq=Robert+Mapplethorpe+%22noho%22&pg=PT4399 ''The Encyclopedia of New York City''], Second Edition, Yale University Press.</ref> As of 2015, Stella lived in [[Greenwich Village]] and kept an office there but commuted on weekdays to his upstate studio at [[New Windsor, New York|Rock Tavern, New York]], in the [[Hudson River Valley]].<ref name="Solomon2015"/> The critic and essayist Megan O'Grady visited the studio in 2019, and writing for the [[New York Times Style Magazine]], described it as a "hangar-like structure", its entrance marked by a piece of wood spray-painted with the name "Stella". She called the interior a "vast space more easily traversed by golf cart than on foot", divided into separate rooms for fabrication and display, with a curtain hanging in the rear behind which he kept his spray-painter, his industrial sander, and new works being assembled.<ref name="O'Grady2020"/> 

==Work==

===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>

===Late 1960s and early 1970s===
[[File:Frank Stella's 'Harran II', 1967.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.3|Frank Stella ''Harran II'', 1967]]
In 1967, Stella designed the set and costumes for Scramble, a dance piece by [[Merce Cunningham]].<ref name="Guggenheim2024">{{cite web |author1=Guggenheim Staff |title=Frank Stella |url=https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/frank-stella |website=The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation |publisher=The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation |date=2024 |access-date=May 6, 2024 |archive-date=May 6, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240506061240/https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/frank-stella |url-status=live }}</ref> The same year, his began his ''Protractor Series'' (1967–71) of paintings, named after the common measuring instrument, a half circle [[protractor]]. These feature [[circle|arcs]], sometimes overlapping,<ref name="Kaji-O'Grady2001">{{cite book |last1=Kaji-O'Grady |first1=Sandra |title=Serialism in Art and Architecture: Context and Theory |date=2001 |publisher=Monash University |page=75 |url=https://bridges.monash.edu/ndownloader/files/16697501 |chapter=3: The Development of Serialism in the Visual Arts |access-date=May 5, 2024 |archive-date=May 6, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240506130556/https://bridges.monash.edu/ndownloader/files/16697501 |url-status=live }}</ref> within square borders named after circular-plan cities he had visited while in the Middle East earlier in the 1960s.<ref name="MMoA20024">{{cite web |author1=Metropolitan Museum of Art Staff |title=Frank Stella {{!}} YAZD III |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/761234 |website=The Metropolitan Museum of Art |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240505182733/https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/761234 |archive-date=May 5, 2024 |access-date=May 5, 2024 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Chougnet2007">{{cite book |last1=Chougnet |first1=Jean-François |title=Museu Berardo: An Itinerary |year=2007 |publisher=Thames & Hudson |isbn=978-0-500-28700-2 |page=114 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dukwAQAAIAAJ&q=%22Protractor%20Series%22%20%22Middle%20East%22}}</ref> He was especially intrigued by the arches and decorative patterns he observed in the architecture and art of Iran. His painting, ''Protractor Variation I'' (1969), now at the [[Pérez Art Museum Miami]], epitomizes his move away from ascetic, monochrome compositions to the vibrant colors and formal complexity of his output after the late 1960s. This work typified his experimentation with shaped canvases, producing innovative paintings in which the imagery was set by their contours.<ref name="PérezArtMuseum2024">{{Cite web |title=Frank Stella {{!}} Pérez Art Museum Miami |url=https://www.pamm.org/en/artwork/2018.045 |access-date=9 May 2023 |website=Pérez Art Museum Miami }}</ref>

In 1969, Stella was commissioned to create a logo for the [[The Metropolitan Museum of Art|Metropolitan Museum of Art Centennial]].<ref>[http://libmma.org/digital_files/archives/Trescher_Centennial_records_b18234550.pdf Finding aid for the George Trescher records related to The Metropolitan Museum of Art Centennial, 1949, 1960–1971 (bulk 1967–1970)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140808033226/http://libmma.org/digital_files/archives/Trescher_Centennial_records_b18234550.pdf |date=August 8, 2014 }}. [[The Metropolitan Museum of Art]]. Retrieved August 8, 2014.</ref> The [[Museum of Modern Art]] in New York presented a retrospective of Stella's work in 1970, making him the youngest artist to receive one.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Frank Stella {{!}} MoMA|url=https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1945|access-date=August 10, 2021|website=The Museum of Modern Art|language=en|archive-date=October 27, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211027172331/https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1945|url-status=live}}</ref> Stella was among those artists invited to participate in the problem-plagued 35th [[Venice Biennale#Organization|Art Biennale]] in Venice (1970) who joined a boycott by artists opposed to the US wars in Vietnam and Cambodia and withdrew their works from display at the American Pavilion.<ref name="Hofmann1970">{{cite news |last1=Hofmann |first1=Paul |title=35th Art Biennale Beset by Problems At Venice Opening |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/06/24/archives/35th-art-biennale-beset-by-problems-at-venice-opening.html |access-date=12 May 2024 |work=The New York Times |date=24 June 1970 |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20230901094946/https://www.nytimes.com/1970/06/24/archives/35th-art-biennale-beset-by-problems-at-venice-opening.html |archive-date=1 September 2023}}</ref>

In the following decade, as he began to adopt more unusual color schemes and shapes,<ref name="Russeth2024">{{cite web |last1=Russeth |first1=Andrew |title=Artist Frank Stella Dies at 87 |url=https://news.artnet.com/art-world/frank-stella-dead-87-2481352 |website=Artnet News |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20240505104413/https://news.artnet.com/art-world/frank-stella-dead-87-2481352 |archive-date=5 May 2024 |date=5 May 2024}}</ref> Stella brought to his artistic productions the element of relief, which he called "[[maximalist]]" painting because it had [[Sculpture|sculptural]] attributes.<ref name="Guggenheim2024"/> He presented wood and other materials in his ''Polish Village'' series (1970–1973), executed in high relief. They were inspired by photographs and drawings he saw of [[Wooden synagogues in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth|wooden synagogues]] that the Nazis had burned down in eastern Poland during World War II.<ref name="Patel2023">{{cite web |last1=Patel |first1=Alpesh Kantilal |title=Frank Stella: Frank Stella discusses his show at the POLIN Museum in Warsaw |url=https://www.artforum.com/columns/frank-stella-discusses-his-show-at-the-polin-museum-in-warsaw-229514/ |website=Artforum |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20230927095441/https://www.artforum.com/columns/frank-stella-discusses-his-show-at-the-polin-museum-in-warsaw-229514/ |archive-date=27 September 2023 |date=7 June 2016 |quote=I came across the images in Maria and Kazimierz Piechotka's book Wooden Synagogues (Arkady, 1959). The photographs and drawings from the book are part of the exhibition, as is a close-to-scale reconstruction of the roof and painted ceiling of a synagogue that once stood in the city of Gwoździec.}}</ref>

Stella abandoned rational structures in the mid-1970s and began to explore new, individualistic paths. He replaced solid planes with sqiggles, lattices, and swirls of color. Composite features began to project from his canvases in all directions, while his wall-mounted paintings evolved into outlandish sculptures.<ref name="Russeth2024"/> Through the 1970s and 1980s, as his works became more uninhibited and intricate, his minimalism became baroque.<ref name="Guggenheim2024"/>

In 1976, Stella was commissioned by [[BMW]] to paint a [[BMW 3.0 CSL]] for the second installment in the [[BMW Art Car]] Series.<ref name="Lewin2021">{{cite book |last1=Lewin |first1=Tony |title=BMW M: 50 Years of the Ultimate Driving Machines |date=2021 |publisher=Motorbooks |isbn=978-0-7603-6848-0 |page=34 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fPc8EAAAQBAJ&pg=PA34 |quote=The dramatic, graph paper–themed CSL by Frank Stella was the second in BMW's Art Car series and was a crowd favorite when it competed in the 1976 24 Hours of Le Mans.}}</ref> He said of this project, "The starting point for the art cars was [[Livery#Modern usage|racing livery]]. The graph paper is what it is, a graph, but when it's morphed over the car's forms it becomes interesting. Theoretically it's like painting on a shaped canvas."<ref name="Taylor2014">{{cite book |last1=Taylor |first1=James |title=BMW Classic Coupes, 1965 – 1989: 2000C and CS, E9 and E24 |date=2014 |publisher=Crowood |isbn=978-1-84797-847-9 |page=157 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iaUZBgAAQBAJ&pg=PT157}}</ref>

He married pediatrician Harriet McGurk in 1978.<ref name="O'Grady2020"/>

===1980s and afterward===
[[File:La scienza della laziness (The Science of Laziness) by Frank Stella, 1984.jpg|thumb|right|Frank Stella {{lang|it|La scienza della fiacca}}, 1984, [[oil paint]], [[enamel paint]], and [[Alkyd|alkyd paint]] on [[canvas]], etched [[magnesium]], aluminum and [[fiberglass]], [[National Gallery of Art]], Washington DC]]
[[File:Memantra pic.JPG|thumb|right|Stella's ''Memantra'', 2005, exhibited at the [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]]]]

From the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, Stella produced a large oeuvre that grappled with [[Herman Melville]]'s novel ''[[Moby-Dick]]'' in a broad way.<ref name="Darwent2024"/> In this period of his career, as the relief of his paintings became increasingly higher with more undercutting, the process eventually resulted in fully three-dimensional sculptural forms that he derived from decorative architectural elements, and incorporating French curves, pillars, waves, and cones. To generate these works, he made collages or scale models that were subsequently enlarged to the original's specifications by his assistants, along with the use of digital technology and industrial metal cutters.<ref name="Guggenheim2024"/>

In 1993, he designed and executed for [[Toronto]]'s [[Princess of Wales Theatre]] a 10,000-square-foot [[mural]] installation which covers the ceiling of the dome, the [[proscenium arch]] and the exterior rear wall of the building.<ref name="Guggenheim2024"/><ref name="Charlebois2021">{{cite web |last1=Charlebois |first1=Gaëtan |title=Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia – Princess of Wales Theatre |url=https://www.canadiantheatre.com/dict.pl?term=Princess%20of%20Wales%20Theatre |website=www.canadiantheatre.com |access-date=May 6, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070808185105/http://www.canadiantheatre.com/dict.pl?term=Princess%20of%20Wales%20Theatre |archive-date=August 8, 2007 |date=August 20, 2021 |url-status=live }}</ref> The mural for the dome was based on computer-generated imagery.<ref name="Mather1994">{{cite book |last1=Mather |first1=Frank Jewett |last2=Sherman |first2=Frederic Fairchild |title=Art in America |date=1994 |publisher=F.F. Sherman |page=37 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i1RUAAAAMAAJ}}</ref> In 1997, he oversaw the installation of the 5,000-square-foot ''Euphonia'' at the Moores Opera House at the [[Rebecca and John J. Moores School of Music]] at the [[University of Houston]], in Houston, Texas.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.music.uh.edu/art/#moh|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20090301163119/http://www.music.uh.edu/art/|title=About the Stella Project in the Moores Opera House|archivedate=March 1, 2009}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.music.uh.edu/ |title=Home |publisher=Music.uh.edu |date=April 25, 2012 |access-date=May 25, 2012 |archive-date=November 27, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111127120733/http://www.music.uh.edu/ |url-status=live }}</ref> A monumental sculpture of his, titled ''Prinz Friedrich von Homburg, Ein Schauspiel, 3X'', was installed outside the [[National Gallery of Art]] in Washington, D.C.<ref name="Lewis2001">{{cite news |last1=Lewis |first1=Jo Ann |title=Stella Sculpture to Land at National Gallery |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2001/05/18/stella-sculpture-to-land-at-national-gallery/f80af0d7-158f-4163-a041-c0860c33e8e8/ |access-date=May 6, 2024 |newspaper=Washington Post |date=January 17, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170827102253/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2001/05/18/stella-sculpture-to-land-at-national-gallery/f80af0d7-158f-4163-a041-c0860c33e8e8/ |archive-date=August 27, 2017 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="NGA2019">{{cite web |last1=NGA Staff |title=Prinz Friedrich von Homburg, Ein Schauspiel, 3X |url=https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.107766.html |website=National Gallery of Art |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191031055734/https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.107766.html |archive-date=October 31, 2019 |date=1998–2001 |access-date=May 6, 2024 |url-status=live }}</ref>

From 1978 to 2005, Stella owned the [[Van Tassell and Kearney Horse Auction Mart]] building in Manhattan's [[East Village, Manhattan|East Village]] and used it as his studio which resulted in the facade being restored.<ref>128 East 13th Street [http://www.gvshp.org/_gvshp/preservation/stella_stable/stella_stable_main.htm] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141010155120/http://www.gvshp.org/_gvshp/preservation/stella_stable/stella_stable_main.htm|date=October 10, 2014}} Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.</ref> After a six-year campaign by the [[Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation]], the historic building was designated a [[New York City Landmark]] in 2012.<ref>{{cite web|title=Van Tassell & Kearney Auction Mart Designation Report|url=http://s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/lp/2205.pdf|publisher=New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission|access-date=October 1, 2014|archive-date=February 1, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210201033324/https://s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/lp/2205.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> After 2005, Stella split his time between his West Village apartment and his [[Newburgh, New York]], studio.<ref>[https://blogs.wsj.com/magazine/2010/03/15/sightlines-frank-stella/ Sightlines: Frank Stella] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170807193253/https://blogs.wsj.com/magazine/2010/03/15/sightlines-frank-stella/ |date=August 7, 2017 }} ''[[The Wall Street Journal]]'', March 15, 2010.</ref>

The ''Scarlatti K'' series, begun in 2006, consists of eight works by Stella from his Scarlatti Kirkpatrick polychrome sculpture series, for which he used a [[3-D printer]] to create the metal and resin segments.<ref name="Jebb2024">{{cite news |last1=Jebb |first1=Louis |title=Frank Stella, a painter's painter and one of the leading abstract artists of his generation, has died, aged 87 |url=https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2024/05/05/frank-stella-one-of-the-leading-abstract-artists-of-his-generation-has-died-aged-87 |access-date=11 May 2024 |work=The Art Newspaper - International art news and events |date=5 May 2024 |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20240506014327/https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2024/05/05/frank-stella-one-of-the-leading-abstract-artists-of-his-generation-has-died-aged-87 |archive-date=6 May 2024}}</ref> The series title refers to the music of the Italian composer [[Domenico Scarlatti]], known for his short but exuberant Baroque period harpsichord sonatas (he wrote more than 500 of them), and to [[Ralph Kirkpatrick]], the American musicologist and harpsichordist, who brought Scarlatti's work to the attention of the listening public, and in 1953 produced the authoritative scholarly catalogue of the sonatas. Stella was inspired by the sonatas, and his series works, like the sonatas, are given "K" numbers, but they allude to Scarlatti's music abstractly with visual rhythm and movement, according to Stella, rather than literal correlation.<ref name="PhillipsCollection2011">{{cite web |last1=The Phillips Collection Staff |title=Stella Sounds {{!}} The Phillips Collection |url=https://www.phillipscollection.org/event/2011-06-10-stella-sounds |website=www.phillipscollection.org |access-date=May 6, 2024 |date=June 11, 2011 |archive-date=May 6, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240506143945/https://www.phillipscollection.org/event/2011-06-10-stella-sounds |url-status=live }}</ref> Stella continued producing new works in the series into 2012. These were shown at the Freedman Art Gallery that year, and commenting about his work in the series, Stella said, "If you follow the edges of the lines, there's a sense of movement, and when they move well and the color follows, they become colorful, and that's what happens in the Scarlatti—it builds up and it moves...".<ref name="FreedmanArtGallery2012">{{cite web |author1=Freedman Staff |title=Frank Stella {{!}} New Work |url=https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5d56bbf5bdf59100013d1dcf/t/5d76688427a38b3a5d5c7227/1568041094016/FA_Stella_PR-2012.pdf |website=Freedman Art |access-date=11 May 2024 |date=17 May 2012}}</ref> Ron Labaco, a curator at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, showed Stella's work in an exhibition featuring computer-enabled pieces, ''Out of Hand: Materialising the Postdigital'' (2013-14).<ref name="Jebb2024"/>

By the turn of the 2010s, Stella started using the computer as a painterly tool to produce stand-alone star-shaped sculptures.<ref name="Jason Farago 2021">Jason Farago (February 4, 2021), [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/04/arts/design/frank-stella-aldrich-museum.html In Frank Stella's Constellation of Stars, a Perpetual Evolution] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211130193724/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/04/arts/design/frank-stella-aldrich-museum.html |date=November 30, 2021 }} ''[[New York Times]]''.</ref> The resulting stars are often monochrome, black or beige or naturally metallic, and their points can take the form of solid planes, spindly lines or wire-mesh circuits.<ref name="Jason Farago 2021"/> His ''Jasper's Split Star'' (2017), a sculpture constructed out of six small geometric grids that rest on an aluminum base, was installed at [[7 World Trade Center]] in 2021.<ref>M.H. Miller (November 22, 2021), [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/22/arts/design/frank-stella-sculpture-world-trade-center.html After 20 Years, Frank Stella Returns to Ground Zero] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211130193726/https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/22/arts/design/frank-stella-sculpture-world-trade-center.html |date=November 30, 2021 }} ''[[New York Times]]''.</ref> It was created to replace the large (each ten feet wide by ten feet tall) [[diptych]] of his paintings, ''Laestrygonia I'' and ''Telepilus Laestrygonia II'', that had been displayed in the lobby of the original World Trade Center, destroyed in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York City.<ref name="Jebb2024"/>

In late 2022, Stella launched his first [[NFT]] (non-fungible token) for his ''Geometries'' project in  collaboration with the [[Artists Rights Society]] (ARS). It includes the right to the [[CAD file]]s to [[3D print]] the art works in the NFTs.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Levin |first=Alex |title=Frank Stella's New NFTs Come With The Right To Print His Art |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexlevin/2022/09/22/on-sale-this-morning-frank-stellas-new-nfts-come-with-the-right-to-print-his-art/ |access-date=March 9, 2023 |website=Forbes |language=en |archive-date=March 9, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230309222849/https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexlevin/2022/09/22/on-sale-this-morning-frank-stellas-new-nfts-come-with-the-right-to-print-his-art/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Katarina Feder, director of business development at ARS, said, "We sold out all 2,100 tokens, and, importantly, brought in resale royalties for secondary sales, something that Frank has been championing for decades."<ref name="Jebb2024"/>

==Artists' rights==
On June 1, 2008, Stella, a member artist of the Artists Rights Society<ref name="ARSNY2008">{{Cite web|url=http://arsny.com/requested.html|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150206001342/http://www.arsny.com/requested.html|title=Artists Rights Society's List of Most Frequently Requested Artists|archivedate=February 6, 2015}}</ref> published with ARS president Theodore Feder an [[op-ed]] for ''[[The Art Newspaper]]'' decrying a proposed U.S. [[Orphan Works]] law which "remove[s] the penalty for [[copyright infringement]] if the creator of a work, after a diligent search, cannot be located".<ref name="ArtNews2008">Frank Stella, [http://www.theartnewspaper.com/article.asp?id=8580 "The proposed new law is a nightmare for artists,"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081007081854/http://www.theartnewspaper.com/article.asp?id=8580 |date=October 7, 2008 }} ''The Art Newspaper'', June 6, 2008.</ref>

In the op-ed, Stella wrote,

{{blockquote|text=The [[Copyright Office]] presumes that the infringers it would let off the hook would be those who had made a "good faith, reasonably diligent" search for the copyright holder. Unfortunately, it is totally up to the infringer to decide if he has made a good faith search.{{parabr}}
The Copyright Office proposal would have a disproportionately negative, even catastrophic, impact on the ability of painters and illustrators to make a living from selling copies of their work.<ref name="ArtNews2008"/>}}

==Exhibitions==
Stella's work was included in several exhibitions in the 1960s, among them the [[Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum]]'s ''The Shaped Canvas'' (1965) and ''Systemic Painting'' (1966).<ref>{{Cite web|title=Artist Intro|url=https://www.heatherjames.com/artist-intro/|access-date=August 10, 2021|website=Heather James|language=en-US|archive-date=August 8, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210808004417/https://www.heatherjames.com/artist-intro/|url-status=live}}</ref> The [[Museum of Modern Art]] in New York presented a second retrospective of Stella's work in 1970.<ref name="Guggenheim2024"/>

The exhibition "Frank Stella and Synagogues of Historic Poland", was on view at the [[POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews|POLIN Museum]] in Warsaw through June 20, 2016. The series of paintings on display, ''Polish Village'' (1970–74), had previously been exhibited at other venues, including the Fort Worth Museum of Dallas in 1978, the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1987, and the Jewish Museum in New York in 1983. The paintings were inspired by photographs and drawings he saw of [[Wooden synagogues in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth|wooden synagogues]] that the Nazis had burned down in eastern Poland during World War II. They came from Maria and Kazimierz Piechotka's book ''Wooden Synagogues'' (Arkady, 1959), and were themselves part of the exhibition.<ref name="Patel2023" />

In 2012, a retrospective of Stella's career was shown at the [[Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg]].<ref>{{cite journal|last=Rhodes|first=David|title=Frank Stella: The Retrospective, Works 1958–2012|journal=The Brooklyn Rail|date=November 2012|url=http://brooklynrail.org/2012/11/artseen/frank-stella-the-retrospective-works-1958-2012|access-date=December 20, 2012|archive-date=March 14, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130314185811/http://www.brooklynrail.org/2012/11/artseen/frank-stella-the-retrospective-works-1958-2012|url-status=live}}</ref>

==Collections==
In 2014, Stella gave his sculpture ''Adjoeman'' (2004) as a long-term loan to [[Cedars-Sinai Medical Center]] in Los Angeles.<ref>Deborah Vankin (July 7, 2014), [http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-cedars-art-stella-20140707-story.html Abstract Frank Stella sculpture 'Adjoeman' joins Cedars-Sinai artworks] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140715053457/http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-cedars-art-stella-20140707-story.html |date=July 15, 2014 }} ''[[Los Angeles Times]]''.</ref> His works are in the collections of many major art institutions, including the [[San Francisco Museum of Modern Art]]; [[Whitney Museum of American Art]], New York; the [[Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden]]; the [[Museum of Fine Arts, Boston]]; the [[Art Institute of Chicago]];<ref name="MIT List 2024">{{cite web |author1=MIT List Visual Arts Center Staff |title=Heads or Tails, 1988 {{!}} MIT List Visual Arts Center |url=https://listart.mit.edu/art-artists/heads-or-tails-1988 |website=Listart.mit.edu |publisher=MIT List Visual Arts Center |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230531054225/https://listart.mit.edu/art-artists/heads-or-tails-1988 |archive-date=May 31, 2023 |date=January 13, 2022 |access-date=May 30, 2023 |url-status=live }}</ref> the [[Pérez Art Museum Miami]];<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=Frank Stella • Pérez Art Museum Miami |url=https://www.pamm.org/en/artist/frank-stella/ |access-date=May 30, 2023 |website=Pérez Art Museum Miami |language=en-US |archive-date=May 30, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230530230225/https://www.pamm.org/en/artist/frank-stella/ |url-status=live }}</ref> the [[List Visual Arts Center]] at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge; the [[Tate]]; the [[Peggy Guggenheim Collection]], Venice; and the [[Kunstmuseum Basel]].<ref name="MIT List 2024"/>

==Recognition==
Stella gave the [[Charles Eliot Norton Lectures]] in 1984, calling for a rejuvenation of abstraction by achieving the depth of baroque painting.<ref>John Russell (March 18, 1984), [https://www.nytimes.com/1984/03/18/arts/art-view-frank-stella-at-harvard-the-artist-as-lecturer.html Frank Stella at Harvard – The Artist as Lecturer] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211027180442/https://www.nytimes.com/1984/03/18/arts/art-view-frank-stella-at-harvard-the-artist-as-lecturer.html |date=October 27, 2021 }} ''[[The New York Times]]''.</ref> These six talks were published by [[Harvard University Press]] in 1986 under the title ''Working Space''.<ref>Frank Stella, ''Working Space'' (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), {{ISBN|0-674-95961-2}}.  [http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/STEWOR.html Listing] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081120134738/http://www.hup.harvard.edu./catalog/STEWOR.html |date=November 20, 2008 }} at Harvard University Press website.</ref>

In 2009, Frank Stella was awarded the [[National Medal of Arts]] by President [[Barack Obama]].<ref>[http://www.nea.gov/news/news10/Medals.html White House Announces 2009 National Medal of Arts Recipients] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100505160005/http://www.nea.gov/news/news10/Medals.html |date=May 5, 2010 }}</ref> In 2011, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Contemporary Sculpture by the [[International Sculpture Center]].<ref name="Ottman2011">{{cite magazine |last1=Ottmann |first1=Klaus |title=Action and Spatial Engagement: A Conversation with Frank Stella |url=https://sculpturemagazine.art/action-and-spatial-engagement-a-conversation-with-frank-stella/ |magazine=Sculpture Magazine |date=April 1, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200920100410/https://sculpturemagazine.art/action-and-spatial-engagement-a-conversation-with-frank-stella/ |archive-date=September 20, 2020 |access-date=May 6, 2024 |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1996, he received an honorary Doctorate from the [[University of Jena]] in [[Jena]], Germany, where his large sculptures of the ''Hudson River Valley'' series are on permanent display, becoming the second artist to receive this honorary degree after [[Auguste Rodin]] in 1906.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.jenanews.de/index.php/nachrichtenarchiv/kultur/51-nachrichten/4654-schrotthaufen-oder-kunst-frank-stella-in-jena|title=Schrotthaufen oder Kunst? Frank Stella in Jena|website=www.jenanews.de|access-date=November 1, 2016|archive-date=July 16, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180716112106/http://www.jenanews.de/index.php/nachrichtenarchiv/kultur/51-nachrichten/4654-schrotthaufen-oder-kunst-frank-stella-in-jena|url-status=dead}}</ref>

He was heralded by the Birmingham Museum of Art for having created abstract paintings that bear "no pictorial illusions or psychological or metaphysical references in twentieth-century painting".<ref name=BMA>{{cite book|last=Birmingham Museum of Art|author-link=Birmingham Museum of Art|title=Visitors' View: Flin Flon VI|year=2010|publisher=Birmingham Museum of Art|location=[Birmingham, Ala]|isbn=978-1-904832-77-5|page=236|url=https://www.artsbma.org/visitors-view-flin-flon-vi/|archive-date=6 August 2016 |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20160806121124/http://artsbma.org/visitors-view-flin-flon-vi |url-status=live}}</ref>

== Critical reception ==
Writer and curator [[Klaus Ottmann]] says many art critics were outraged when Stella's [[Black Paintings (Stella)|Black Paintings]] (1958–60) were shown at the Museum of Modern Art's "16 Americans" (1959-1960) exhibition. [[Irving Sandler]] attributed the death of American gesture painting to the mortal blow dealt by these reductive and non-allusive paintings. According to Ottman, "Today, they are universally considered seminal works of 20th-century American art."<ref name="Ottman2011"/>

According to critic Megan O'Grady, art critics were shocked by the "Black Paintings", with their purposely flat affect, their extreme reductiveness, and their "refusal to appease". In her view, the young artist had been inspired by the artists he admired in New York, among them [[Barnett Newman]], [[Jackson Pollock]], and [[Willem de Kooning]], and felt that he was allowed freedom to do whatever he wanted with painting.<ref name="O'Grady2020"/> She writes that critics have always been disconcerted by the fact that "the godfather of Minimalist painting" became a forbear of modern baroque.

The art historian and critic [[Douglas Crimp]] writes that the notion of art as existing detached from everything else and autonomous proceeds from the logic of modernism, and is a notion maintained by contemporary painting into the 1980s. Painting is understood as having an origin and an essential nature, and its historical development as being a long, unbroken panorama. According to Crimp, the stylistic change that occurred during the late 1970s in Frank Stella's work embodied this art historical view of painting and how it operates to maintain the practice of painting. By his lights, Stella's shift to the "flamboyantly idiosyncratic constructed works" of this period was "a kind of quantum leap" compared to his breakout works of the late 1950s.<ref name="Crimp1993">{{cite book |last1=Crimp |first1=Douglas |title=On the Museum's Ruins |year=1993 |publisher=MIT Press |isbn=978-0-262-53126-9 |pages=98–99 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b3NefTf5ggYC&pg=PA98 |chapter=The End of Painting}}</ref>

For Crimp it was Stella's earliest paintings which suggested to his fellows that the end of painting had at last arrived. He sees Stella as working in profound torment over the inferences made by those early works, moving ever further away from them, and disavowing them more vehemently with every new series. Crimp goes on to say the late 1970s paintings "are truly hysterical in their defiance of the black paintings; each one reads as a tantrum, shrieking and sputtering that the end of painting has not come".<ref name="Crimp1993"/>

Viewing some of Stella's large scale works at a 1982 exhibition in the [[Addison Gallery of American Art|Addison Gallery]] at the [[Phillips Academy]], critic Kenneth Baker voiced a dissenting opinion. He wrote in ''[[The Phoenix (newspaper) | The Boston Phoenix]]'' that "The physical impact of the recent works is unsettling. They make you want to back away; you're not sure how firmly they're anchored to the wall. But soon you realize that any object of comparable size might have the same impact. That this question arises at all suggests how small a part 'painting' plays here. Stella’s stvle resides wholly in the design of these objects, and their designs are just not that interesting to contemplate."<ref>{{cite news |last1=Baker |first1=Kenneth |title=Less than Stella: Big is not always beautiful |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_boston-phoenix_1982-11-30_11_48/page/7/mode/1up |access-date=6 October 2024 |work=The Boston Phoenix |date=30 November 1982}}</ref>

When the Whitney Museum of American Art exhibited its Frank Stella retrospective in 2015, art critic [[Jerry Saltz]] reminded viewers that Stella had declared "I don't make Conceptual Art. I need the physical thing to work with or against." Saltz advised them to think literally, and in terms of the space the works occupy and the nature of their surfaces, seeing color as an element of their structures. He described Stella as being one of "the first to deal as directly as possible with the perception of material, form, and color", "the first hard-core Minimalist painter", and "a forerunner to the Postminimalism that defined the late 1960s and 1970s". Saltz goes on to say "even though he's prone to cranking out a lot of work that looks like God-awful space junk, I always pay attention to this artist".<ref name="Saltz2015">{{cite web |last1=Saltz |first1=Jerry |last2=critic |first2=New York's senior art |title=Toward a Unified Theory of Frank Stella |url=https://www.vulture.com/2015/10/toward-a-unified-theory-of-frank-stella.html |website=Vulture |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20151031122949/http://www.vulture.com/2015/10/toward-a-unified-theory-of-frank-stella.html |archive-date=31 October 2015 |date=30 October 2015}}</ref>

== Art market ==
In May 2019, [[Christie's]] set an auction record for one of Stella's works with the sale of his ''Point of Pines'', which sold for $28 million.<ref name="REC">{{cite web|url=https://www.christies.com/about-us/press-archive/details?PressReleaseID=9393&lid=1/|title=RESULTS {{!}} 20th Century Week Totals $1.072 Billion|date=May 17, 2019|work=[[Christie's]]|access-date=June 29, 2020|archive-date=October 27, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211027180914/https://www.christies.com/about-us/press-archive/details?PressReleaseID=9393&lid=1/|url-status=live}}</ref>

In April 2021, his ''Scramble: Ascending Spectrum/Ascending Green Values'' (1977) was sold for £2.4 million ($3.2 million with premium) in London. The painting was bought for $1.9 million in 2006 from the collection of Belgian art patrons Roger and Josette Vanthournout at [[Sotheby's]].<ref>{{Cite web|last=Villa|first=Angelica|date=April 15, 2021|title=$34.2 M. Phillips London Sale Brings Tunji Adeniyi-Jones Record and Air of Optimism|url=https://www.artnews.com/art-news/market/phillips-london-tunji-adenjiyi-jones-jean-dubuffet-results-1234589900/|access-date=April 17, 2021|website=ARTnews.com|language=en-US|archive-date=October 27, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211027180914/https://www.artnews.com/art-news/market/phillips-london-tunji-adenjiyi-jones-jean-dubuffet-results-1234589900/|url-status=live}}</ref>

== Stella and the sport of squash ==

In the 1980s, Stella took up the game of [[Squash (sport)|squash]] after he injured his back while opening a garage door. His racquet was strung with five bright colors. He later had a squash court built at his horse farm in upstate New York, and formed close friendships with many squash players. In 1986 he told Nicholas Dawidoff, a writer for [[Sports Illustrated]]: "The advantage of squash is that I can forget about painting. A white blank and a ball; you don’t know where you are. It's like a snowstorm." Being interviewed in 1987 by Susan Orleans of ''The New Yorker'', he quipped, "In art, you can keep getting better, but in squash you hit your level and that's just about it. Curtains. You’re finished. I hit my limit at about forty minutes of mediocre playing."<ref name="McClintick2024">{{cite news |last1=McClintick |first1=Chris |title=Frank Stella: A Remembrance {{!}} US Squash |url=https://ussquash.org/2024/05/frank-stella-a-remembrance/ |access-date=2 June 2024 |date=15 May 2024 |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20240602010111/https://ussquash.org/2024/05/frank-stella-a-remembrance/ |archive-date=2 June 2024}}</ref> 

Speaking of Stella after his death, Ned Edwards, the executive director of the U.S. Squash Foundation, said that "Frank was a transformational figure for squash." The director of the [[Tournament of Champions (squash)|Tournament of Champions]], John Nimick, said, "Frank was a patron saint of our sport and various efforts to promote squash in New York City for forty years. He was a player, promoter, sponsor and creator of our perpetual trophy."<ref name="McClintick2024"/>

== Personal life and death ==
From 1961 to 1969, Stella was married to art historian [[Barbara Rose]]; they had two children, Rachel and Michael.<ref name="Solomon2020"/> At the time of his death, he was married to Harriet E. McGurk, a pediatrician.<ref name="Grimes2024"/> They had two sons, Patrick and Peter.<ref name="Grimes2024"/> He also had a daughter, Laura, from a relationship with Shirley De Lemos Wyse between his marriages.<ref name="Grimes2024"/>

Stella died of [[lymphoma]] at his home in [[West Village]], Manhattan, on May 4, 2024, eight days before his 88th birthday.<ref name="Grimes2024"/>

==Gallery of works==
{{gallery |width=200 |height=200
|File:Frank Stella Mural (89405653).jpg|Frank Stella, ''mural at [[David Mirvish Gallery|'David Mirvish Books']]'', 1974; in Toronto
|File:Stella9.JPG|Stella, detail of ''BMW 3.0 CSL car-painting'', 1976
|File:Frank Stella BMW M1 ProCar Art Car.fL (1979).jpg|Stella, ''BMW M1 Pro car-painting'', 1979; commissioned by [[w:Peter Gregg (racing driver)|Peter Gregg]]
|File:Stella "Cones and Pillars" (Part 2).jpg|Stella, ''Cones and Pillars, part 2.'', {{c.|1984}}; painting
|File:Moby Dick by Frank Stella, The Ritz-Carlton Millenia Singapore - 20110928.jpg|Stella, ''Moby Dick'', 1991–1993; wall-relief in The Ritz-Carlton, Singapore
|File:Frank_Stella_Moby_dick.jpg|''Moby Dick'' at the Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal
|File:Cornucopia by Frank Stella, The Ritz-Carlton Millenia Singapore - 20060930-01.jpg|Stella, ''Cornucopia'', {{c.|2000|lk=no}}; sculpture in fiberglass
|File:Catal Hüyük.JPG|Stella, ''Çatal Hüyük'', 2008; location, Hallbergsplatsen, [[Borås]]
|File:Black Star by Frank Stella at Whitney Museum.jpg|''Black Star'' at Whitney Museum
}}

==Selected bibliography==
* Julia M. Busch: ''A Decade of Sculpture: the 1960s'', Associated University Presses, Plainsboro, 1974;  {{ISBN|0-87982-007-1}}
* Frank Stella and [[Siri Engberg]]: ''Frank Stella at Tyler Graphics'', Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 1997; {{ISBN|9780935640588}}
* Frank Stella and Franz-Joachim Verspohl: ''The Writings of Frank Stella. Die Schriften Frank Stellas'', Verlag der Buchhandlung König, Cologne, 2001; {{ISBN|3-88375-487-0}}, {{ISBN|978-3-88375-487-1}} (bilingual)
* Frank Stella and Franz-Joachim Verspohl: ''Heinrich von Kleist by Frank Stella'', Verlag der Buchhandlung König, Cologne, 2001; {{ISBN|3-88375-488-9}}, {{ISBN|978-3-88375-488-8}} (bilingual)
* [[Andrianna Campbell]], Kate Nesin, Lucas Blalock, [[Terry Richardson]]: ''Frank Stella'', [[Phaidon Press|Phaidon]], London, 2017; {{ISBN|9780714874593}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
{{Commons}}
{{Wikiquote}}
* [http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/artist-info.1903.html#works Frank Stella works at the National Gallery of Art]
* [http://artseditor.com/site/unbounded-doctrine/ Unbounded Doctrine: Encountering the Art-Making Career of Frank Stella] ArtsEditor.com, December 29, 2015.
* [https://nga.gov.au/stories-ideas/frank-stella-saving-abstraction/ Frank Stella: Saving abstraction] Jane Kinsman, National Gallery of Australia, November 11, 2016
* [http://www.thejewishmuseum.org/exhibitions/word-symbol-space Word Symbol Space] An exhibition featuring work by Frank Stella at The Jewish Museum, NY.
* [http://www.askyfilledwithshootingstars.com/wordpress/?p=638 Frank Stella interviewed by Robert Ayers, March 2009]
* [http://www.artnet.com/artist/16079/frank-stella.html Works of art, auction & sale results, exhibitions, and artist information for Frank Stella on artnet]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20060427105951/http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_bio_148.html ''Guggenheim Museum online Biography of Frank Stella'']
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070311035641/http://www.mirvish.com/OurTheatres/murals Stella mural installation, Princess of Wales Theatre, Toronto]
* [http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/findingaids/stelfran.htm Frank Stella Papers at the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art]
* [http://www.brooklynrail.org/2006/03/art/frank-stella-1958 ''Frank Stella 1958''] poet [[William Corbett (poet)|William Corbett]] writes about the exhibition titled ''Frank Stella 1958'' at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts February 4 – May 7, 2006

{{Frank Stella}}
{{Minimal art}}
{{National Medal of Arts recipients 2000s}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stella, Frank}}
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