Frank Stella: Untitled. From the suite 'Ten Works by Ten Painters' published by the Wadsworth Atheneum, 1964

practically square image. On the left, lines in alternating yellow and blue arranged vertically; on the right ditto, but horizontal.

382/500

Given by Kasmin Ltd.

Suite originally housed in a cream cloth-covered portfolio box with cream and white paper lining. On front X / + / X in blue and white and in blue on spine ‘TEN WORKS BY TEN PAINTERS THE WADSWORTH ATHENEUM’ Container is unnumbered and housed elsewhere, currently (2011) at the back of '1st Mezz' in the National Art Library. Inside the container still remains four pages (description and transcript below):
Title-page: vertically in black ‘X / + [cut out] / X / [and horizontally through the same +] TEN WORKS [+] TEN PAINTERS / THE WADSWORTH ATHENEUM’
Title-page verso of title-page: ‘Copyright 1964, The Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut 67/500 [edition number in pen] / Designed and Produced by Ives-Sillman, New Haven, Connecticut’
Page 2: in caps a list of names: ‘GEORGE ORTMAN / FRANK STELLA / ELLSWORTH KELLY / ROBERT MOTHERWELL / ANDY WARHOL / STUART DAVIS / ROY LICHTENSTEIN / LARRY POONS / ROBERT INDIANA / AD REINHARDT’
Page 3: ‘This portfolio was commissioned and printed in an attempt to extend / as much of the visual impact as pssible of ten artists to paper and / to make the prints available to collectors who might not otherwise / have such a vivid slice of the artist. / The dry surface of screening seemed to be most apt to translate the / effect of their painting, both the flatness which is the unifying bond / between the ten, and the insistence of paint on the surface of canvas / so like the visible heft of ink on paper here. / Samuel J. Wagstaff, Jr. Curator of Paintings’ [followed by a list of sponsors]
Dims. of container: 65 x 53.5 x 2.5cm.
Condition note: Spillages and staining all over container especially front cover.

The printer was Sirocco, under supervision of Ives-Sillman.

The American painter and sculptor, Frank Stella, has been one of the most influential exponents of Minimalism, the movement in painting and sculpture which developed in the 1960s as a reaction to the so-called excesses of Abstract Expressionism. Its exponents sought to emphasize the nature of the materials from which their painting or sculpture was created and to reduce colour, line and form to a series of simple geometric arrangements. Although Stella’s work from the 1970s onward shifted away from this earlier precision and clarity on flat surfaces, his early contributions to Minimalism were seminal, with patterns of angled, parallel stripes, often in arrangements of black and white, which emphasised the shape of the canvas. He later painted on irregularly shaped canvases. Born in 1936, he was still a young man in 1964 when he contributed to this portfolio. He was to become an active exponent of printmaking and produced many works with Ken Tyler of Gemini, one of the leading print studios in the USA from the 1960s onward.
[This print is a duplicate of Circ.531-1969.]

CIRC.124-1969