Frank Stella's post-painterly abstraction

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

The twentieth century was especially rich in artistic and sculptural experiments. It became a turning point in too many countries and continents, while remaining a century of revolution in the memory of future generations. Having died down quite recently, it is still alive, and the 21st century feels its presence in artistic expression, continuing to talk about the world in its language and look for new ways of self-expression. One such legacy is the American artist Frank Stella.

Who is Stella?

The master of post-painterly abstraction Frank Stella is best known in the West. This is an American artist who began his career in the second half of the 20th century and has continued to create amazing works of art in modern times. He is a recognized master of post-painting abstraction in the spirit of hard-edge painting - “the style of a sharp edge”, or “painting of hard contours”.

What does post-painterly abstraction look like?

The direction is also called chromatic abstraction. This is a trend in painting, inherentsecond half of the XX century. It originated in the 1950s in the USA as a softer and smoother continuation of geometric abstraction.

This direction is characterized by clear edges, but the stroke is free and sweeping within a strictly defined contour. Being, in fact, minimalist, post-painterly abstraction strives for a bright contrast of simple forms or for their almost complete, but harmonious merging. The direction is also characterized by monumentality and asceticism, strict conciseness of details, subject to a single plan of the creator. This painting is contemplative, thoughtful, melancholic and surprisingly organic, which cannot be said about its predecessor - geometric abstraction.

The term was introduced in 1964. It was written by critic Clement Greenberg, who needed to somehow define the direction of painting presented at the exhibition he curated at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Sharp Edge Style

The phrase hard-edge painting means painting containing figures with sharp, clear, defined contours. As a rule, these are geometric shapes, but this pattern is not a rule.

"Sharp edge style" has a direct relationship with post-painterly and geometric abstraction, as well as color field painting. It arose as a reaction to the spontaneity and rampage of abstract expressionism.

The term hard-edge painting was coined in 1958. Its author is an art criticLos Angeles Times, art exhibition curator and writer Jules Langsner.

The creative path of Frank Stella

The artist began to create in the style of post-painterly abstraction back in the 50s of the last century, while studying painting at the Phillips Academy. In the future, he continued to develop and hone his skills, working as a draftsman and designer in New York, where he moved after receiving his second education. Stella also graduated in history from Princeton University.

Actually, what the whole world knows today as the unique style of Frank Stella began to take shape in his work by the end of the 1950s. For the first time, the author's style of the artist appeared in the cycle of "black" paintings. This is a series of images that play on the pure contrast of black and white. The surfaces of the canvases are filled with black stripes, between which there are narrow white gaps. It is with this series that Frank Stella's turn to the problems of pure visualization begins.

In the 1960s, the artist continued to experiment. At this time, he creates a series of "aluminum" paintings, which also depict only stripes separated from each other by narrow gaps. But this time they were not black, but metallic. This was followed by a series of "copper" paintings, made in the same style. Also during this period, Frank Stella abandons rectangular canvases and moves on to the so-called "curly canvases": canvases in the form of the letters "L", "T" or "U".

Later, the artist moves on to historical themes. In 1971 Frank Stellawrites the cycle "Polish Villages", revealing the theme of the Holocaust. All canvases are made as texture-constructive non-objective reliefs. According to art critics, Stella's paintings should resemble the roofs of synagogues.

But the artist does not stop there. Since 1976, he has been using curved complex forms in his work. With the help of shipbuilding patterns, the Exotic Birds series is born. And in 1983, a series of labyrinthine “Concentric Squares” was born, made in polychrome or in bright colors.

In the late period of creativity, the artist moves away from geometric abstraction and the "style of sharp edges." His works become smoother, more romantic, the forms flow neatly into one another. In the same period, the boundaries between painting and decorative art in the artist's work are completely blurred.

In 2009, Stella received the US National Arts Award and in 2011 was awarded the International Sculpture Center Award.