Midnight, Forecastle

Fascinated with the novel Moby Dick, by American novelist Herman Melville, Frank Stella created over 130 aluminum wall-reliefs in a series inspired by this classic American tale. A swirling mass of riotous color and form, the present work calls to mind the tempestuous ocean through which Captain Ahab chased the white whale. Commenting on the abstract forms in this series Stella says, "Abstraction in the 20th century is dependent on cubism, which is arranging planes in space, but the planes are arranged in a kind of stiff and geometric kind of way. Once the planes begin to bend and curve and deform then you get into what happens in Moby Dick - it's a way of opening things up for abstraction." (J. Jones, ‘The Prince of Whales,’ The Guardian, London, April 2001).