Description:
from 2nd Exotic Bird series; related to metal relief series from 1976-79
Label Text:
Since the late 1950s, Frank Stella has been in the forefront of abstract art in America. In the mid-1970s, the artist broke away from his signature concentric square paintings when he produced the Brazilian Series. This group of etched and painted aluminum reliefs was named for various locations around Rio de Janeiro. In these works, Stella abandoned his geometric vocabulary, embracing a more gestural brushstroke. At the same time he liberated himself from the confines of the rectangle.
This series was followed by the Exotic Bird series, for which Stella first produced twenty-eight drawings and fifteen reliefs (each fabricated in three sizes). The titles refer to a group of endangered birds that Stella discovered in James C. Greenway's book, Extinct and Vanishing Birds of the World (1967). With their sinuous s-curves, rhythmic exploration of forms that jump out into space, and scumbled brushstrokes, the Exotic Birds represented an innovative departure for Stella, fusing the pictorial with the sculptural.
As Stella enjoys interpreting his work in several mediums, his next step was to render each of the Exotic Birds as a print. He executed six lithographs in 1977, and then in 1979 he made four screenprints that were much grander in scale. In the case of Green Solitaire, named after the now-extinct Hawaiian bird (Viridonia sagittirostris Rothschild), the artist used 23 applications of colors (using one silkscreen for each color) to achieve the same expressive energy conveyed by the related three-dimensional work. Over these layered forms, Stella added his own hand, painting with oil, paintsticks, and crayons, so that this screenprint is unique.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=AC+1985.23 |
