Prior Exhibit:

Frank Stella

Illustrations after El Lissitzky's Had Gadya

April 10 through June 29, 2001

Frank Stella, One Small Goat My Father Bought For Two Zuzim, 1984.

Frank Stella (American, born 1936) is most well known as a major painter in the Minimal Art movement. The style he developed in the late 1950's was in extreme reaction to Abstract Expressionism. Stella's emphasis at that time was on the idea that a painting is a physical object rather than a metaphor for something else. He said he wanted to eliminate illusionistic space and that a picture was a flat surface with paint on it -- nothing more.

Illustrations after El Lissitzky's Had Gadya consists of twelve, large-format sheets that are hand-colored and collaged with lithographic, linoleum block, and rubber relief printings. Stella's inspiration for this series was the 1919 illustrations of El Lissitzky for Jewish folk song Had Gadya. El Lissitzky's illustrations have the same sort of simplicity as the lines of the song: "Then came a dog and bit the cat." "Then came a stick and beat the dog." and his forms resemble sticks, dogs, and other objects from the song. The abstract forms in Lissitzky's drawings appealed to Frank Stella, who futher abstracted the images in his own work.

Due to the complex methods Stella used, it took him two years to create the series. He finished in 1984 just as the earliest of his Cones and Pillars series were being painted. The resulting prints are a stunning example of Frank Stella's skill as a craftsman and a tribute to his status as one of the country's most innovative printmakers.

See also the interviews of Frank Stella in Bomb and Cigar Aficionado, as well as an article in Wired and a brief bio from the Locks Gallery.