Frank Stella, Phillips Andover Academy, 1982

Frank Stella

METAL RELIEFS PHILLIPS ANDOVER ACADEMY, 1982

This is an extremely rare hand signed and numbered metallic silkscreen print advertising Frank Stella's 1982 Metal Reliefs exhibition at Phillips Andover Academy.  It was created for members of the Andover community, and not mass marketed, so it's one of the more elusive Stella prints for true fans!

Frank Stella graduated from Andover, so this important exhibition was a homecoming for him. (Stella's preppy credentials are unrivaled amongst his peers: After Andover, Stella completed his undergraduate studies at Princeton, then went on to give a series of famous lectures on painting at Harvard University that would later be turned into an important art historical reference book!) 

 The work measures 38 inches (vertical) by 23 inches (horizontal). There is a small, approx. 1/4" area of inpainting to the yellow background, visible only up close (see photo) that does not affect the image or the work. It is otherwise in excellent condition.

Ships rolled in a tube. 

Stella's work references many of the key developments or movements in post-war American painting; geometric abstraction, color field painting and Minimalism. Frank Stella (b.1936) combines many processes—lithography, screenprinting, etching, engraving, aquatint, relief, woodcut—in a rare oblong or elliptical format. As much known for his printmaking as his painting, Stella pushes the limits of the medium by crafting the beautiful handmade, dyed papers into three-dimensional sculptures. Frank Stella participated in several exhibitions that defined the 60s including the Guggenheim’s The Shaped Canvas (1964–65) and Systemic Painting (1966), and has had several major retrospectives in America, Europe, and Japan. Stella is one of the most important contemporary printmakers and his art reveals constant growth and change.After attending high school at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, he went on to Princeton University, where he painted and majored in history. Stella’s art was recognized for its innovations before he was twenty-five. In 1959, several of his paintings were included in Sixteen Americans at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (1959–60), and Alfred Barr acquired one of his works for the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection. Stella joined dealer Leo Castelli’s stable of artists in 1959. He began his extended engagement with printmaking in the mid-1960s, working first with master printer Kenneth Tyler at Gemini G.E.L and in 1973 he had a print studio installed in his New York house. Stella’s work was included in several important exhibitions that defined 1960s art, among them the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s The Shaped Canvas (1964–65) and Systemic Painting (1966). His art has been the subject of several retrospectives in the United States, Europe, and Japan. Among the many honors he has received was an invitation from Harvard University to give the Charles Eliot Norton lectures in 1983–84. He has received honorary degrees from Princeton University, Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem, Dartmouth College and the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany. In 1989 he received the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the French government. In 1992 he was awarded the Barnard Medal of Distinction. He was presented with the Gold Medal for Graphic Art award by the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1998. In 2000 he became the only American artist to have been given a solo show at London’s Royal Academy of which he is a member. He was presented with the Gold Medal for Graphic Art award by the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1998. Stella won the Gold Medal of the National Arts Club in New York (2001). In 2009 Stella was the recipient of the Julio Gonzalez Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Arts in Valencia, Spain and in the same year was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Obama. In 2011, Stella was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Sculpture Center, and has also just received a lifetime achievement award from the Royal Academy of Art