Only a Few Days Remain to See Frank Stella Exhibition
TOLEDO, OHIO—Only a few days remain to see 11 monumental paintings by famed American artist Frank Stella at the Toledo Museum of Art.
The Frank Stella: Irregular Polygons exhibition, which for the first time anywhere shows the series of paintings in a single gallery, ends July 24. Toledo is the final of only two venues for the exhibition, which Brian Kennedy curated while he was director of the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College. With the encouragement of Stella and the cooperation of the Hood Museum of Art and lenders to the exhibition, Kennedy brought the show to TMA, where he is now director.
In addition to the paintings from Stella’s Irregular Polygons series (1965–66), the exhibition includes his preparatory drawings and the 1974 print series Eccentric Polygons based on the Irregular Polygons. There also is a video about the artist, who won a 2010 National Medal of Arts, the nation’s highest honor for artistic excellence.
Although based on simple geometries, the Irregular Polygons comprise one of the most complex artistic statements of the artist’s career. Each of the 11 compositions combines varying numbers of shapes to create daringly irregular outlines. Stella made four versions of each composition, changing the color combinations. Created in 1965–66, they mark a radical shift from his earlier striped paintings in their use of large fields of color. The asymmetric canvases play with illusion, confronting the artist’s previous emphasis on flatness while continuing his career-long exploration of space and volume in both painting and sculpture.
The Museum has made the exhibition family-friendly by providing a guide for parents that teaches children about polygons and a space where visitors can experiment and create their own designs for irregular polygons.
Admission to the Museum and to the exhibition is free. Parking is free for members and $5 for nonmembers. To learn more, visit http://www.toledomuseum.org.
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Frank Stella: Irregular Polygons–2
Note: For further information contact Teri Sharp, public relations manager, at 419-254-5082 or [email protected], or Kelly Fritz Garrow, director of communications, at 419-255-8000, ext. 7408, or [email protected].
Press Release Contact Name: Teri Sharp
Press Release Contact Email: [email protected]
Organization Name: Toledo Museum of Art