FRANK STELLA Delphine and Hippolyte 1967

Rarely to market, this 1960s geometric abstraction is done in pure black lithography - one run from one black aluminum plate. Printed on Barcham Green etching paper. Pencil signed and numbered from the limited edition of only 100. Other editions of this work are in the permanent collections of most major museums and institutions worldwide include MOMA, the TATE, the Whitney, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, SFMOMA, the Walker Art Museum, Museum of Fine Art Houston, the Philadelphia Musuem of Art, the National Gallery of Australia & many others - which is why it is so scarcely seen on the market.  This work is especially significant as it was made in the very first year Frank Stella started making lithographs - 1967. It is from his iconic Black Series II. The graphics from "Black Series II" were mostly diamond pattern variations which, as described in his catalogue raisonne, had "aggressive optical qualities". To intensify the impact of the compositions Stella became more conscious of paper and ink choices.  The lithographs from "Black Series II" were realized on bright white paper which created a strong contrast with the "sooty richness of French Charbonnel black ink" "The Black Series I [and II] prints closely relate to large, monochromatic canvases known as the Black Paintings, which Frank Stella (American, born 1936) completed between 1958 and 1960. Each lithograph features a pattern of rectilinear stripes of uniform width printed in metallic black ink on buff-tinted paper. In the Black Paintings, the stripes extend to the edge of the canvas support; in the prints, Stella positioned the striped form in the lower left quadrant of the sheet. This format visually unifies the series, and subtly shifts focus from the symmetrical patterning to the asymmetrical relationship between striped field and rectangular paper. In 1964, Stella famously declared of his paintings: “What you see is what you see.” By championing purely formal concerns, he was ostensibly reacting against the rhetoric of subjectivity and romanticism surrounding abstract expressionism. But the shimmer of the metallic ink in the Black Series prints, the subtle unevenness of their stripes (drafted freehand on the lithographic plate), and the spatial ambiguity of the patterning produces an optical ambiguity that gives rise, as Stella conceded, “to emotional ambiguities.” The inky blackness inflects an eerie mood that is underscored by the prints’ evocative titles (he called them “downbeat”), which include references to Nazi slogans, Brooklyn slum neighborhoods, and New York nightclubs..." - National Gallery of Art.

Literature:

R. H. Axsom, The Prints of Frank Stella: A Catalogue Raisonné, 1967-1982, Hudson Hills Press, New York, 1983, no. 18).

Gemini G.E.L. printed catalogue, publication sequence Number 71

Gemini G.E.L. online catalogue raisonné, 51.28

Frank Stella: Prints, A Catalogue Raisonne (Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation, 2016)

Stella's prints from this era - literally his first prints, done at the framed printer Gemini G.E.L. are extremely desirable. 

SIGNATURE

Pencil signed & numbered on the recto (front). Bears the publisher's and printer's distinctive blind stamp. Stamped on verso:  Gemini G.E.L. Los Angeles, Calif.  lower left verso in graphite is the Gemini Gel Work Number:  FS67-146