By DARLA MCCAMMON

Lakeland Arts Association

When I went to church Sunday a lovely lady in our congregation stopped me and said she always enjoyed this column and even cuts it out and saves it! Those words meant so much to me and make the work of researching and writing this column on a weekly basis worth the work! Thanks to all of you who send me words of encouragement. It is appreciated. This week we are delving into the life of an American artist named Frank Stella.

Work by artist Frank Stella continues to bring high dividends in increased value and as we look at some rising stars on the American art scene, Stella is one to consider. Frank Stella was born in 1936 and still lives and continues to paint at his studio in New York. His early years were spent in Massachusetts with his Italian parents. His father was a gynecologist, thus the family did well financially.

Even in high school Stella began his love of art and was particularly drawn to the abstract work of such notables as Albers and Hofmann.  Princeton University afforded more artistic development and he also made trips to New York where he was enthralled with works of Pollock and Kline, abstract expressionists.  After Princeton, Stella moved to New York and became noted for the innovative approach he took in his work before he had reached the age of twenty-five.  His marriage to Barbara Rose, a well-known art critic also helped his fame spread.

More ingenious approaches such as using aluminum and copper paint in his work brought more attention to his intricate designs and shapes that spewed forth from his canvases. Late in the 1960s Stella began his adventures into printmaking working with some well-known master printers. A series of prints were produced during this time and used a number of techniques such as lithography, etching, and screen printing as well as offset lithography.

His work continued to metamorphose in other directions with many of his canvases having such high amounts of paint and relief they were almost considered sculptures. In 1976 the BMW car company hired him for an “Art Car Project.” Stella commented on his work for BMW: “The starting point for the art cars was racing livery. In the old days there used to be a tradition of identifying a car with its country by color. Now they get a number and they get advertising. It’s a paint job, one way or another. The idea for mine was that it’s from a drawing on graph paper. The graph paper is what it is, a graph, but when it’s morphed over the car’s forms it becomes interesting, and adapting the drawing to the racing car’s forms is interesting. Theoretically it’s like painting on a shaped canvas.”

By the 1990s Stella moved completely into full free-standing sculpture work and received many commissions for his unique creations. His work is now in major collections and museums with the closest museum to our area of Indiana being the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio. Stella is 81 years old and still works out of his studio in New York.

Upcoming and Current Events: 

• Warsaw City Hall Art Gallery. Free admission to see a smattering of work by Darla McCammon. This award-winning artist continues to develop in new directions. Watch for a future exhibit of her abstracts. Warsaw City Hall Gallery is open 8 a.m – 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.
• Lakeland Art Association, current exhibit, Wamsley and Shoemaker. Other arts and craft items are also on display.  Bring your friends and browse and enjoy. 302 E. Winona Ave. Warsaw. Visit online.
• Honeywell themed competition open in Wabash Indiana June 8 through July 24. This prestigious event always has wonderful entries. All work entered revolves around a water theme.
• Watercolor program by Gabrielle Stephenson June 26, 7 p.m. at LAA gallery.
• First LAA Art Fair at the Kosciusko Fairgrounds, August 26-27.

Web site for this column author: www.darlamc.com, Email her at [email protected], or call (574) 527-4044.  Some older columns are available for your pleasure on the web site.