Frank Stella

1936 -

American (Malden, Massachusetts -)

Frank Stella is an American painter and printmaker. His work lies between a strict formalist modernism, as promoted by critic and collector Clement Greenberg, and a later form of formal inquiry called Minimalism. Stella moved to New York in 1958 and thereafter established himself by reacting against the expressive use of paint by most artists active in the Abstract Expressionist movement. Associated with the “New American Painting” he gained wide recognition in 1960 when he was shown at MoMA in the group show entitled “Sixteen Americans.” His “Black Paintings” of this period, as they would be come to called, were composed of regular bands of black paint separated by pinstripes of unpainted canvas.