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拍品专文
“I need something that I feel is worth painting on, so I have to make it myself. …I have a gift for structure. …Building a picture was something natural for me. Build it and then paint it. It was a job I was well suited for”—Frank Stella, 1987.
(F. Stella, quoted in Frank Stella 1970-1987, Museum of Modern Art, New York, September 1987, n.p.).
Frank Stella, one of the most influential artists of the post-Abstract Expressionist generation, was by the ‘70s embarking on a significant departure from his earlier work. Consisting of just twenty full size works, the artist created his Brazilian series of three-dimensional wall-mounted relief sculptures, such as the present example, during a compressed period of creative output between the years 1974 and 1975. He would spend much of the first half of the 1970s exploring new directions, leading to his creating three-dimensional relief pieces, first his Polish Village series, works which would influence the subsequent Brazilian series. With these new sculptural works, Stella would become interested in building complex structures that he would then paint upon. This added a subtle painterly quality, as he used his drawing and brushwork to introduce texture and reveal the hand of the artist that was rarely seen in his earlier works.
The present work, Maquette I for Leblon, shares its name with a captivating neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro presided over by a sheer, double-pointed cliff formation and adjacent to the world famous Ipanema Beach. However, true to his unique style, Stella makes no overt reference to Rio in the present work, beyond its title as Stella’s true passion was to be found in exploring abstract geometric forms and the energies they expressed.
Far from being a conventional pictorial rectangular shape, the present work employs the rectangle as framing device, even as its sweeping diagonal lines and triangles forcefully and energetically depart from the traditional canvas shape. The prominence of the rectangle in the Brazilian series may have resulted from the influence of another body of work Stella was producing at the same time, his Concentric Square paintings. The more complicated shapes and combinations of the Brazilian series stand in dramatic contrast to the simplicity and neutrality of the square form.
To create Maquette I for Leblon, Stella rubbed clean, new aluminum surfaces with grease crayon upon which a caustic solution was then applied. The solution etched those portions of the metal not covered by the crayon marks. A coat of clear lacquer was then applied, and over this base coat, transparent, silk-screen inks were put on, making it possible to see through to the etched aluminum surface beneath the colors. The work suggests the energy of elements either exploding or imploding, and the works in the series have been compared to the 1920s-era art movement Russian Constructivism.
Describing the three-dimensional reliefs he created during this period, Stella said in his matter-of-fact way, “I need something that I feel is worth painting on, so I have to make it myself. …Building a picture was something natural for me. Build it and then paint it. It was a job I was well suited for” (F. Stella, quoted in Frank Stella 1970-1987, Museum of Modern Art, New York, September 1987, n.p.).
(F. Stella, quoted in Frank Stella 1970-1987, Museum of Modern Art, New York, September 1987, n.p.).
Frank Stella, one of the most influential artists of the post-Abstract Expressionist generation, was by the ‘70s embarking on a significant departure from his earlier work. Consisting of just twenty full size works, the artist created his Brazilian series of three-dimensional wall-mounted relief sculptures, such as the present example, during a compressed period of creative output between the years 1974 and 1975. He would spend much of the first half of the 1970s exploring new directions, leading to his creating three-dimensional relief pieces, first his Polish Village series, works which would influence the subsequent Brazilian series. With these new sculptural works, Stella would become interested in building complex structures that he would then paint upon. This added a subtle painterly quality, as he used his drawing and brushwork to introduce texture and reveal the hand of the artist that was rarely seen in his earlier works.
The present work, Maquette I for Leblon, shares its name with a captivating neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro presided over by a sheer, double-pointed cliff formation and adjacent to the world famous Ipanema Beach. However, true to his unique style, Stella makes no overt reference to Rio in the present work, beyond its title as Stella’s true passion was to be found in exploring abstract geometric forms and the energies they expressed.
Far from being a conventional pictorial rectangular shape, the present work employs the rectangle as framing device, even as its sweeping diagonal lines and triangles forcefully and energetically depart from the traditional canvas shape. The prominence of the rectangle in the Brazilian series may have resulted from the influence of another body of work Stella was producing at the same time, his Concentric Square paintings. The more complicated shapes and combinations of the Brazilian series stand in dramatic contrast to the simplicity and neutrality of the square form.
To create Maquette I for Leblon, Stella rubbed clean, new aluminum surfaces with grease crayon upon which a caustic solution was then applied. The solution etched those portions of the metal not covered by the crayon marks. A coat of clear lacquer was then applied, and over this base coat, transparent, silk-screen inks were put on, making it possible to see through to the etched aluminum surface beneath the colors. The work suggests the energy of elements either exploding or imploding, and the works in the series have been compared to the 1920s-era art movement Russian Constructivism.
Describing the three-dimensional reliefs he created during this period, Stella said in his matter-of-fact way, “I need something that I feel is worth painting on, so I have to make it myself. …Building a picture was something natural for me. Build it and then paint it. It was a job I was well suited for” (F. Stella, quoted in Frank Stella 1970-1987, Museum of Modern Art, New York, September 1987, n.p.).