Frank Stella: Pure Minimalism

Frank Stella - Hyena Stomp - 1962 - Alkyd paint on canvas - 77 x 77 in. - Tate Modern, London (click photo for larger image)American Minimalist painter Frank Stella was born in Malden, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, in 1936. He began to paint abstract pictures while at Phillips Academy, Andover. Stella studied history at Princeton University from 1954-58, and also took painting courses at the same time. Stella was influenced earlier on by such artists as Pollock, Kline and Johns. Moving to New York in 1958, he began creating works that reacted against Abstract Expressionism. He became a leading figure in the Minimalist movement, and later became known for his irregularly shaped works and large-scale multimedia reliefs.