Frank Stella

Frank Stella (born Malden, MA in 1936) Etymology (Q 10) from the Moby Dick series, 1990, aluminium and steel, 235 x 247 x 210 cm, (PS) Photographic expertise issued by the artist Provenance: Dusan Gallery, Seoul Private Collection, Berlin Exhibited: Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Frank Stella, Die Retrospektive. Werke 1958– 2012, 8.9.2012–20.1.2013 Literature: Robert K. Wallace, Frank Stella’’’’s Moby-Dick Series: Words and Shapes, Michigan 2000, ill. p. 132 RES World Art, Art World, Istanbul 2012, p. 133 (full page ill.) Exhibition catalogue Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg Frank Stella, Die Retrospektive, Werke 1958–2012, Ostfildern 2012, p.291, no. ill. Frank Stella began his Moby Dick series 1985, completing the series 1997 by illustrating all 135 chapters of Herman Melville’’’’s novel, of which nine titles are constructed in the form of large, free-standing sculptures. Etymology is named after the preface to the novel which primarily serves to define the word “whale”. According to Melville, this means “named for his roundness” and is found in thirteen languages. Frank Stella uses this explanation of the word’’’’s origin to realise his very explosive and abstract figures. He lends the huge sea-mammal no actual shape; instead he presents to the viewer a sense of the animal’’’’s size and girth. “Stella’’’’s Etymology is abstract but it is not flat. Shining in bright aluminium, it sits squarely on the floor, declaring its multisided presence. This Q construction was one of the first Moby Dick pieces to take Stella off the wall.” The viewer can associate the coarse meshed honeycomb construction of the one side with the enormous mouth of the whale and its countless teeth and villi, other views are dominated by smooth aluminium. Thanks to its otherness and the funnel-shaped, curved form, the central honeycomb creates a second textural space which pulls the observer into the inside of the figure, like the huge maw of the whale. “No single slide or photograph can capture its essential appearance, just as no single word or language can capture the essential whale.” (Wallace, p. 132)

Lot Description Frank Stella (b. 1936) Green Solitaire signed, numbered and dated 'Stella '79 6/10' (upper left) silkscreen inks, acrylic and glitter on tycore 60 x 84 in. (152.4 x 213.3 cm.) Executed in 1979. This work is number six from an edition of ten. Provenance Tyler Graphics Ltd., Bedford Village Acquired from the above by the present owner

LOT 206 PROPERTY OF THE BANK OF AMERICA COLLECTION: SALE PROCEEDS TO BENEFIT NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS FRANK STELLA B.1936 SUCHOWOLA III signed, titled, dated 1973 and numbered #38 on the reverse acrylic, felt, cardboard, fabric and canvas on wood supports 119 by 96 by 6 1/4 in. 302.3 by 243.8 by 15.9 cm.

Lot Description Frank Stella (b. 1936) Les Indes galantes (small version) fluorescent alkyd on canvas 19 5/8 x 19 5/8 in. (49.8 x 49.8 cm.) Painted in 1964. Provenance Leo Castelli Gallery, New York Acquired from the above by the present owner Pre-Lot Text Collection of Celeste and Armand Bartos Literature L. Rubin, Frank Stella: Paintings 1958-1965, A Catalogue Raisonné, New York, 1986, pp. 182-183, no. 196 (illustrated in color). Exhibited New York, The American Federation for the Arts, Cross Section of Contemporary Art, October 1964-October 1965. View Lot Notes > An ocular sensation, Frank Stella's Les Indes Galantes (small version) emerges as a signature example of the artist's series of Concentric Squares and Mitered Mazes, which he produced during the early 1960s. Realized after his trip to Europe in 1961, on the occasion of his first exhibition at the Galerie Lawrence in Paris, both its title and ordered rhythm reference Jean-Philippe Rameau's 1973 opera-ballet, described by Stella as a Frenchman's idea of the New World. A mesmerizing color study from Stella's classic period, Les Indes Galantes matches each of the three primaries against the three secondary colors interspaced with narrow tracks of unprimed canvas, using the flat commercial alkyd paints that he felt expressed perfectly the intentions of his work. Meticulously applying single coats of paint separated by runs of raw canvas, Stella composed Les Indes Galantes with colored bands of uniform width divided on each side by a diagonal axis. And yet, the diagonal at the upper left has been displaced upwards by the width of one stripe that does not quite meet at the paintings center. As a result, this slight displacement, together with the sequence of colors, generates a sense of counter-clockwise spiraling inwards towards the center, or conversely a clockwise spiral expanding outwards from it. Beginning in the top left with indigo, the stripes are painted in a progressive and cyclical sequence of six colors in the order of the spectrum-indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red-with each color applied uniformly at its maximum intensity. As a result, the composition can read, among other ways, as four isosceles triangles not quite meeting at the center of the canvas with the left triangle, composed of secondary colors, having its bottom corner cut-off by the edge of the picture. Dividing these six colors among four abutting planes, an intensely hypnotic patterning emerges within each of the triangles, underlining the almost mathematical purity of this series. Executed during the first few years of the heroic period that ushered in a new era of abstraction in favor of a more refined, minimalist aesthetic, Stella endeavored to reinforce the pure formal nature of his work. "My painting is based on the fact that only what can be seen there is there," Stella stressed. "If the painting were lean enough, accurate enough or right enough you would just be able to look at it. All I want anyone to get out of my paintings, and all I ever get out of them, is the fact that you can see the whole idea without any confusion....What you see is what you see" (F. Stella, quoted in W. Rubin, Frank Stella, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1970, p. 76). Working toward the reduction of art to its essential qualities, Stella pursued the regularity and logic of grids and mazes, which afforded him an array of lines, shapes, and geometric patterns to build on. To Stella, abstraction was the pinnacle of art and Les Indes galantes captures the artist's maxim, "what you see is what you see." Owing its spellbinding excitement to the discord between the controlled composition of the concentric bands and vibrant colors, the dialogue between the formal qualities of the strict pictorial shapes and that of the rainbow hues result in a numbing power all of its own.

FRANK STELLA (b. 1936) And the Holy One, blessed be he, came and smote the Angel of Death (from Illustrations after El Lissitzky's Had Gadya series) , 1982-86 signed, inscribed and dated 'Bat F. Stella 84' (lower left), signed, inscribed and dated 'Bat F. Stella oil over reject print '86' (lower right) lithograph, linoleum cut and color screenprint collage with oil and oil stick 50 1/2 x 41in. (128.2 x 104.1cm) This work is BAT proof F from an edition of sixty plus ten artist's proofs published by Waddington Graphics, London. PROVENANCE: M. Knoedler and Co., New York. Evelyn Aimis Fine Art, Toronto. Acquired from the above by the present owner. This lot has been withdrawn.