Frank Stella
Frank Stella
Frank Stellais an American painter and printmaker, noted for his work in the areas of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction. Stella lives and works in New York...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPainter
Date of Birth12 May 1936
CityMalden, MA
CountryUnited States of America
stress important looks
One learns about painting by looking at and imitating other painters. I can't stress enough how important it is, if you are interested at all in painting, to look and to look a great deal at painting. There is no other way to find out about painting.
art culture given
I don't like to say I have given my life to art. I prefer to say art has given me my life.
thinking annoyed competition
I never noticed competing with other generations. There's competition within your own generation, but that competition is good. Maybe you're annoyed that somebody's getting more money than you are, but what's really annoying is if someone's painting a better painting than you're making. So it's something to think about and work toward and stay focused on.
against anyone art best good maybe minus newman picasso remember variety
Remember that the '60s was up against the best American art that anyone had produced, and probably the best international art of the 20th century, minus Picasso and Matisse. But who was going to be as good as Barnett Newman and Clyfford Still? Maybe we weren't, but there was a lot of variety and a lot of trying.
real abstract-painting century
Abstract paintings must be as real as those created by the 16th century Italians.
thinking artist careers
I think for a lot of artists, if you're lucky enough to have a kind of career, especially toward the end, you start to think about what the whole ensemble looks like. It's the whole that counts. The parts are given, but you don't know how the whole thing's going to look when it's all put together.
real mean hard-times
I get cranky real easily. So the honor of it and the wonder of it all and everything has a hard time overcoming the petty annoyances; I mean, that's simply the reality of being alive, I guess.
mean way forget
I had to find a way to paint abstractly, which is what I wanted to do. I couldn't forget [Wassily] Kandinsky and [Kazimir] Malevich and [Piet] Mondrian, I mean that was the basis.
art world stuff
I don't like a lot of the stuff that goes on in the art world, but it's hard to be old and like what goes on around you.