On View
Not on viewObject number2009.63
Black Adder
Artist
Frank Philip Stella
(American, 1936 - 2024)
Date1968
Mediumlithograph
Dimensionsimage: 11 1/4 × 25 3/4 in. (28.6 × 65.4 cm)
sheet: 16 1/4 × 29 in. (41.3 × 73.7 cm)
mat: 24 × 30 in. (61 × 76.2 cm)
sheet: 16 1/4 × 29 in. (41.3 × 73.7 cm)
mat: 24 × 30 in. (61 × 76.2 cm)
Credit LineBequest of Charlotte Collins from the Charles and Charlotte Collins Collection
Exhibition History"A Passion for Collecting: Prints of the 1960s and '70s from the Collins Collection," KIA Galleries 2&5 (Nov. 13, 2010 - Jan. 2, 2011).
"Drawn to Abstraction," Sardoni Art Gallery, Wilkes University, Wilkes-Barre, PA (August 25 - November 1, 2020).
"Lines That..." KIA Upjohn Mason Grandchildren's Interactive Gallery (March 11 - June 11, 2023).
Label TextIn 1959, a fellow Minimalist artist asserted, “Art excludes the unnecessary. Frank Stella has found it necessary to paint stripes. There is nothing else in his painting.” Black Adder is a lithograph from his “V" series, in which notched forms simultaneously push together and pull apart within a unified form. The meaning of Stella’s titles in this abstract series are unclear but, surprisingly, suggest specific (though obscure) visual references, including a South African mountain range and beach (Quathlamba and Ifafa), a Chilean valley (Itata), and a snake with V- or M-patterned markings (Black Adder).
Having helped establish the Minimalist style in the 1960s, Stella subsequently experimented with other approaches to abstraction throughout his long career. He continued to be a prolific printmaker and painter, stretching toward increasingly sculptural and even architectural forms in recent years.
