Frank Stella, Renowned Artist, Passes Away
Frank Stella, a painter, sculptor and printmaker whose constantly evolving works are hailed as landmarks of the minimalist and post-painterly abstraction art movements, died Saturday at his home in Manhattan. He was 87.
Gallery owner Jeffrey Deitch, who spoke with Stella's family, confirmed his death. Stella's wife, Harriet McGurk, told the New York Times that he died of lymphoma.
Born May 12, 1936, in Malden, Massachusetts, Stella studied at Princeton University before moving to New York City in the late 1950s.
At that time many prominent American artists had embraced abstract expressionism, but Stella began exploring minimalism. By age 23 he had created a series of flat, black paintings with gridlike bands and stripes using house paint and exposed canvas that drew widespread critical acclaim.
Over the next decade, Stella's works retained his rigorous structure but began incorporating curved lines and bright colors, such as in his influential Protractor series, named after the geometry tool he used to create the curved shapes of the large-scale paintings.
In the late 1970s, Stella began adding three-dimensionality to his visual art, using metals and other mixed media to blur the boundary between painting and sculpture.
Renowned artist Stella remained highly productive even in his 80s, with his latest creations currently showcased at the Jeffrey Deitch Gallery in New York City. These vibrant sculptures, massive in size, appear almost weightless as they are composed of gleaming polychromatic bands that twist and turn through the air.
"The current body of work is truly remarkable," Deitch shared with AP. "Stella believed that the pieces he presented were the culmination of years of dedication to establishing a fresh pictorial realm and merging elements of painting and sculpture."
During a recent interview in 2021 with CBS Sunday Morning, Stella humorously explained his preference for abstract over figurative art, stating, "because I wasn't a big fan of people...Yeah, I mean, you know, everyone was doing that, or I didn't want to spend ages sketching from a model. It's quite sad when you see that poor girl perched on a chair after disrobing, it's rather pitiful!"
