Eugene Delacroix
French painter (1798-1863)
Frank Stella
American painter and printmaker
Frank Philip Stellawas 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.
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About the Frank Stella
Frank Philip Stellawas 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.
12 Quotes by Frank Stella
- 1.
One learns about painting by looking at and imitating other painters.
Frank StellaAmerican painter and printmaker
- 2.
I don’t like a lot of the stuff that goes on in the art world, but it’s hard to be old and like what goes on around you.
Frank StellaAmerican painter and printmaker
- 3.
When I’m painting the picture, I’m really painting a picture. I may have a flat-footed technique, or something like that, but still, to me, the thrill, or the meat of the thing, is the actual painting. I don’t get any thrill out of laying it out.
Frank StellaAmerican painter and printmaker
- 4.
But, after all, the aim of art is to create space – space that is not compromised by decoration or illustration, space within which the subjects of painting can live.
Frank StellaAmerican painter and printmaker
- 5.
I want to make exalted art. A successful image has pictorial lift. I am looking for whatever is up there.
Frank StellaAmerican painter and printmaker
- 6.
No art is any good unless you can feel how it’s put together. By and large it’s the eye, the hand and if it’s any good, you feel the body. Most of the best stuff seems to be a complete gesture, the totality of the artist’s body; you can really lean on it.
Frank StellaAmerican painter and printmaker
- 7.
Architecture can’t fully represent the chaos and turmoil that are part of the human personality, but you need to put some of that turmoil into the architecture, or it isn’t real.
Frank StellaAmerican painter and printmaker
- 8.
What you see is what you see.
Frank StellaAmerican painter and printmaker
- 9.
A sculpture is just a painting cut out and stood up somewhere.
Frank StellaAmerican painter and printmaker
- 10.
I was worried in the ’80s that the best abstract painting had become obsessed with materiality, and painterly gestures and materiality were up against the wall.
Frank StellaAmerican painter and printmaker
- 11.
Up until 35 I had a slightly skewed world view. I honestly believed everybody in the world wanted to make abstract paintings, and people only became lawyers and doctors and brokers and things because they couldn’t make abstract paintings.
Frank StellaAmerican painter and printmaker
- 12.
I don’t like to say I have given my life to art. I prefer to say art has given me my life.
Frank StellaAmerican painter and printmaker