October 18, 2014
Anita Feldman, Deputy Director of Collections & Exhibitions
Arnold Newman
American • 1918–2006
Frank Stella, painter, New York
Gelatin silver print • 1967
Newman made this photograph at a pivotal time in Stella’s career when he was creating his Protractor series of monu- mental canvases which incorporated concentric curving bands of boldly contrasting colors. Stella (1936– ) was born in a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts and studied art history and painting at Phillips Academy Andover before attending Princeton University. Rejecting figural art, he embraced abstraction and sought to emphasize the canvas as an object rather than an illusionary window on the world. He empha- sized the strictly formal nature of his art, saying “My painting is based on the fact that only what can be seen is there. It really is an object… What you see is what you see.”
Gift of Cam and Wanda Garner
2010.108
Last Updated: 12/10/2020