On the occasion of the passing of American artist Frank Stella, Galerie Sprüth Magers Berlin sent out a memorial email today. The gallery owners Monika Sprüth and Philomene Magers, together with the gallery team, express their deep sadness at the loss of Frank Stella, who died in New York on 4 May 2024, just a few days before his 88th birthday. They reflect on the stages of his work in an overview:
Image above: Frank Stella, Photo: Sally Fraser
“Over his prolific, decades-long career, Stella worked across media—from painting to sculpture to printmaking—continuously pushing the limits of artistic creation and making his name synonymous with the history of twentieth and twenty-first-century American art. He conceived of all his works in relation to painting. Yet the austere minimalism of his groundbreaking Black Paintings of the late 1950s and shaped canvases of the early 1960s—each of which embraced the flatness of the picture plane—gave way to three-dimensional forms that engage with various disciplines, including literature, philosophy and music. In the 1980s and ’90s, Stella expanded his sculptural paintings into wild, tectonic works full of exuberant colors and energy. And beginning in the 1990s, he worked innovatively with computer renderings, piecing together complex forms from recurring motifs inspired by smoke rings, a spiral-coiled hat, stars and other visual phenomena.
Stella’s long-standing conception of painting as a multidimensional, multidisciplinary enterprise and his relentless experimentation have inspired many generations of artists. The gallery is proud to have shared his work with Berlin and Los Angeles audiences in two memorable solo exhibitions in 2016 and 2018. We extend our sincere condolences to his family, friends and many supporters.”
