Property from the Collection of Darby Bannard The years 1958-1960 were seminal in the life and pioneering career of Frank Stella and the works offered herein from the Collection of Darby Bannard are testament to this claim. This grouping includes drawings revealing Stella's iconoclastic view towards abstract expressionism and his formal desire to create a visually stimulating surface that denies even the faintest hint of pictorial illusion. Stella was looking toward the developing ideas of Carl Andre, Stella's one time studio-mate, and the pioneering works of Robert Rauschenberg who was then producing his classic Combine works--treating the surface of a painting as a depository for the accumulation of raw and scavenged materials. Rauschenberg's Combine structure gave the necessary permission to Stella, opening the door for his experiments with automatism, allowing for a final foray into improvisation before trading in a maximalist vocabulary for a refined and sublimated formal mode of expression. These are prime examples of the artist's work and utilize the "stripe" motif that Stella will continue to refine and use as a formal component in his coveted masterpieces, the Black paintings of 1958-1960 and the Metallic series from 1960-1963. These paintings remain expressionistic and tied to the work of predecessors like Robert Motherwell, and more specifically Jasper Johns for whom the stripe had also played a role in defining his Flag painting of 1954-1955, which was an important precursor to Stella's own object-like paintings, albeit with an appropriated image based structure. Like Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland and Helen Frankenthaler, Frank Stella was picking up the torch of Modernism as espoused by Clement Greenberg and taking it to its logical extreme. However varied the results, each of these artists worked toward a similar goal; the flattened or shallow picture plane, optical vibrancy and the promotion of a literal object-like surface. While Morris Louis allowed gravity to assist the paint in its descent over the surface of the unprimed canvas Stella brushed his paint on the canvas emphatically with an aggressive determination. Stella was in essence re-evaluating the work of the Abstract Expressionists and reinvigorating their ideals in terms of scale, all over composition and gesture. Stella's confidence and assuredness are readily visible in each of the works offered herein and most prosaically in the dramatic black and white drawings in which the artist's thoughts, ideas and concepts germinated. These works from the Collection of Darby Bannard, Stella's classmate, contemporary and occasional collaborator, are historical gems from a recent and treasured past.

Frank Stella (b. 1936)

Untitled

Details

Frank Stella (b. 1936)
Untitled
four drawings--charcoal on paper
two: 8½ x 11 in. (21.2 x 27.9 cm.)
two: 11 x 8½ in. (27.9 x 21.2 cm.)
Drawn circa 1958-1959. (4)

Provenance

Acquired from the artist by the present owner

Lot Essay

In the early, formative years of Frank Stella's artistic career, the masters of Abstract Expressionism had great effect on his work. Franz Kline in particular was a large influence on Stella's work, as seen in the present lot, Untitled. Stella's play on Kline's style is apparent in the bold areas of dark charcoal and Stella even goes so far as to credit his influence by inscribing three of the drawings 'KLINE'.

Untitled

Lot Essay

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