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Our new Summer Show is now open, running to the end of August 2022 at our gallery on Maddox Street and also at Shapero Rare Books at 105 New Bond Street. A group selling show celebrating the brilliance and diversity of modern and contemporary printmaking, artists include Andy Warhol, Alex Katz, David Hockney, Jasper Johns, Frank Stella and Pablo Picasso.
FRANK STELLA
Frank Stella’s The Candles, is an important new acquisition, currently on view at our Maddox Street gallery and of course on our website. It is an exceptional example of his later Maximalist style. The Candles takes its name from chapter 119 in Herman Melville’s ‘Moby-Dick’. It refers to the fiery balls of lightning, also known as St. Elmo’s fire, that illuminate the mast tops of Captain Ahab’s whaling ship during a thunder storm.
Stella captured a sense of this dramatic phenomenon in the radiant reds and oranges, and the collaged elements that he created using cast-aside materials from previous projects. One of the most important new motifs in this piece that wasn’t derived from previous work is the 'smoke ring'. Originating in photographs of Stella blowing cigar smoke, the smoke ring was then transformed through a series of computer and printed manipulations.
Frank Stella, The Candles, 1992, screenprint and lithograph
Riallaro, from Imaginary Places, is part of a series of works by Frank Stella that he created over a period of four years. The title for each print in the series is taken from 'The Dictionary of Imaginary Places' by Alberto Mangual and Gianni Guadalupi. Each work is recognisable for its compositions of twisting, colliding and knotted forms. The shapes seem to spill out of their rectangular sheet, seemingly trying to escape their frames. Similar to his SwanEngravings, Stella employed his full palette of printmaking media, to realise these compositions - including lithography, relief printing, etching, aquatint, engraving and screenprinting.
Frank Stella, Riallaro, from Imaginary Places, 1995