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Course: Modernisms 1900-1980 > Unit 9
Lesson 2: New York School- The Impact of Abstract Expressionism
- Sari Dienes, Star Circle
- Jasper Johns, Flag
- Johns, White Flag
- Robert Rauschenberg, Erased de Kooning Drawing
- Robert Rauschenberg, Canyon
- Robert Rauschenberg, Bed
- Robert Rauschenberg, Signs
- Ed Kienholz and Nancy Reddin Kienholz Useful Art #5: The Western Hotel, 1992
- Ad Reinhardt, Abstract Painting
- Ad Reinhardt
- The Painting Techniques of Ad Reinhardt
- Helen Frankenthaler, Mountains and Sea
- Helen Frankenthaler, The Bay
- Frankenthaler's The Bay
- Frank Stella, The Marriage of Reason and Squalor
- “Protractor, Variation I” by Frank Stella
- New York School (quiz)
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“Protractor, Variation I” by Frank Stella
“Protractor, Variation I” by Frank Stella is an acrylic and graphite painting on canvas at the Pérez Art Museum Miami. Created in 1969, the painting is 16 feet wide by 8 feet tall, and is composed of rhythmic bands of color in the shape of a protractor. This work is one of nearly 100 paintings in Stella’s Protractor series. Discover more reasons why this is a masterpiece with Franklin Sirmans, Director of the Pérez Art Museum Miami. Created by Smarthistory.
Want to join the conversation?
- Is it the complexity that Stella derives from the simple geometric shapes that makes this work so compelling?(1 vote)
Video transcript
(Jazz music plays) Hello, I am Franklin Sirmans, Director of the Jorge
M. Pérez Art Museum Miami. Welcome to Bank of America's
Masterpiece Moment. Today I would like to talk about one of my favorite
works from our collection, Frank Stella's
"Protractor, Variation I," and tell you why I think
it is truly a masterpiece. Pérez Art Museum began
operating as an institution in Downtown Miami in 1984 and began collecting in 1994. Since 2013, we have been
located on Biscayne Bay in our unique and
innovatively designed building by the Swiss architecture
firm Herzog & de Meuron. "Protractor, Variation I" is a monumental acrylic
and graphite painting on canvas that spans sixteen feet
wide by eight feet tall and, as its name suggests, it's a work in a series by the great American
painter Frank Stella. The painting was
bequeathed to the Pérez by Jan Cowles in 2018, an important patron
of the museum. She had it displayed in
her Park Avenue apartment for almost fifty years. Frank Stella was born in 1936 and grew up in Malden,
Massachusetts. He spent his formative
teenage years at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. There, he was surrounded
by modern abstract painting at the on-campus Addison
Gallery of American Art, the first museum in America to exhibit the work of
Bauhaus artist Josef Albers. While there, he also encountered
the art of Hans Hofmann, who, like Albers, was deeply concerned with
color and abstraction. These two artists as
espoused by the Gallery became hallmarks of
Stella's engagement with modern art. After graduating from
Phillip's Academy, Stella attended
Princeton University. He began attending exhibitions at New York galleries
and museums. He emulated the preeminent Abstract Expressionist
painters of the moment, such as Jackson Pollock
and Franz Kline, working his own way through what was being
created, by imitation. By 1958, while
still at Princeton, he was on his way to
redefining art history with a series of paintings that were wholly his own. Rather than replicating
the gestures and movements as painted by his predecessors, Stella went the
opposite direction and began to explore the
properties and materials he used -the color of the paint, the flatness of the canvas. He presented the painting
as an object rather than something
that represented a scene, an action or emotion and became one of
the preeminent painters of the Minimalist movement. "Protractor, Variation I" was made in 1969. He arrived at
this colorful painting after he had already
exhausted other styles and ways of making
abstract paintings. Stella has constantly
probed the liminal space where painting meets sculpture, in terms of form and dimension. Two other works from
our collection by Stella also explore this territory: "Chodorów II," 1971; and "The Quadrant," from 1988. Stella is an
astounding innovator. He never settled
comfortably in one place. He moves rapidly from irregular
and regular shaped paintings into multiple forms
that eventually lead to relief paintings that
had pluridimensionality. This particular work is
exemplary of Stella's practice from 1967 to 1971, a period defined by
his "Protractor" paintings and arguably the prolific
artist's most important and well-known series of works. It is one of 27
different variations, using the tool of math
students everywhere. The rhythmic bands of color
in "Protractor, Variation I" form a latticework
that is complex and yet derived from the
simplicity of the protractor. This is not the abstraction
of the Expressionists: The paint is applied
perfectly, manicured and clean. In 1969, Stella said, "My main interest
has been to make what is popularly called
decorative painting truly viable in unequivocal
abstract terms." The scale of this work gives
it an architectural function. Perhaps it is unsurprising
that the "Protractors," a group of nearly 100 paintings, in three distinct motifs, are the largest series of
paintings Stella made to date. The Roman numeral I in the title identifies the work as part
of a specific design group designating its
surface patterning; in this case, the semicircle
of the protractor resting firmly on
its rectilinear base. This half circle - rather
than the full circle - is the primary unit
of all the formats. Yet, no matter how complex
these interweavings become, their color and hard edges
between bands of color give them a clarity of thought and composition
that is remarkable. I want to thank you for
taking the time to watch today and to learn more about "Protractor, Variation I"
by Frank Stella. I encourage you
to join the conversation and discuss the work
with friends and family. And please visit the Bank of America
Masterpiece Moment website to sign up for alerts and ensure that
you never miss a moment. To sign up to
receive notifications about new Bank of America
Masterpiece Moment videos, please visit: www.bankofamerica.com/
masterpiecemoment.