Exhibition

From the Collection: Frank Stella

From the Collection: Frank Stella presents a selection of works by the artist from the Glass House permanent collection. One of America’s most important artists, Stella played a significant role in the development of abstraction in the 20th century and has consistently pushed compositional boundaries throughout his career.

On view in the Philip Johnson-designed Painting Gallery (1965), the exhibition includes an early shaped painting from the artist’s first solo exhibition at Leo Castelli Gallery (Averroes, 1960), which was acquired by Johnson in 1961, as well as works from the Protractors, Irregular Polygons and Polish Village series. View a 360 tour of the Painting Gallery here.

Johnson and David Whitney were early admirers of Stella, and they avidly collected the artist’s work throughout their life. Therefore, the Glass House possesses a significant collection of works by Stella, which range from painting to sculpture to multimedia. Significantly, the last building completed by Johnson on the New Canaan site — Da Monsta (1995) — was inspired by the design for an unrealized museum in Dresden by Stella. The building concluded what Johnson called his “50-year diary,” representing the history of 20th-century architectural currents across the 49-acre campus.