Frank Stella (May 12, 1936 – May 4, 2024) first began exhibiting his work in the late 1950s and was soon in the forefront of the Post-Painterly Abstraction group of artists who were reacting to the dominance of Abstract Expressionism. He embraced different shapes, patterns, and media in his work, from honeycomb steel to luminous plastic, to achieve his goal of freeing painting from the wall. His paintings, prints, and sculpture in a wide variety of styles have been described as ranging from minimalist to "maximalist." Works by Stella as well as portraits and archival items related to his career are in the collections of our museums and the Archives of American Art.
