Danese is pleased to announce an exhibition of monumental works by Frank Stella. The opening reception will be held Thursday, November 16, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m., and the exhibition will continue through December 22.

This remarkable group of large-scaled paintings and reliefs collectively refers to the work of Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811), one of the greatest and most evocative of the German Romantic writers. Stella’s response to von Kleist’s literary accomplishments is as audacious and ambitious in scope as the author’s texts.

Included in the exhibition are two of the nine Michael Kohlhaas paintings, each of which measures 14-feet square. Accompanying these exuberant and complex paintings is the Marquise von O, an equally energetic work measuring 43-feet wide by 11 feet high. These paintings incorporate visual elements from Stella’s vast lexicon of abstract forms: grids, lattices, Ben-day dots, honeycombs, and ribbons of color, interspersed by myriad permutations of digitalized images of smoke rings. This dense and intricate montage creates an almost hallucinatory illusion of three dimensions within a shallow plane.

Stella has long challenged preconceived notions about the very nature of painting. From the now iconic monochrome paintings of the late 50’s and early 60’s, to the shaped canvases of the late 60’s and 70’s, to the constructed metal reliefs of the 80’s and 90’s, he has continuously extended the possibilities of the discipline.
Born in 1936 in Malden, Massachusetts, Stella received his BA from Princeton University. His work is included in major private and museum collections throughout the world, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, where he is the only living painter to have been honored with two retrospective exhibitions. Frank Stella lives and works in New York.

This exhibition is presented in association with the Jacobson Howard Gallery, New York where related collages and sculpture are currently on view.

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