Frank Stella - Editions & Works on Paper New York Tuesday, April 16, 2024 | Phillips

Create your first list.

Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.

  • A racing aficionado, Frank Stella created the Race Tack Series inspired by three horse racetracks in Southern California and Mexico. Del Mar is based on a course of the same name located in San Diego County, and at the time of the print’s completion, Del Mar was one of the foremost tracks in the United States. Throughout the history of art, horse racing has frequently interested artists across eras, movements, and mediums as the crowds, spectacle, and pace often make for a dynamic image. Impressionist Edgar Degas’s countless depictions of the equine sport are perhaps the best known in the genre, as demonstrated in his pastel drawing Race Horses (c. 1885-88). Degas shows the horses and their jockeys as the audience might see them in life, steps away from their viewers. Several of his horseracing images were featured in the recent exhibition Manet/Degas at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

     

    Edgar Degas, Race Horses, c. 1885-88, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Image: © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Walter H. and Leonore Annenberg Collection, Gift of Walter H. and Leonore Annenberg, 1999, Bequest of Walter H. Annenberg, 2002

    In Del Mar, Stella references his predecessor’s racetrack depictions yet takes us skyward to see the course from above, subverting its traditional perspective and completely abstracting the field. Gone are the horses and the people, leaving behind concentric oblongs in pale yellows and blue. Though abstracted, they invoke the essence of the sandy California beaches and the movement of the race itself, endlessly spiraling around the track.

    • Literature

      Gemini G.E.L. 377
      Richard Axsom 73

    • Artist Biography

      Frank Stella

      American • 1936 - N/A

      One of the most important living artists, Frank Stella is recognized as the most significant painter that transitioned from Abstract Expressionism to Minimalism. He believes that the painting should be the central object of interest rather than represenative of some subject outside of the work. Stella experimented with relief and created sculptural pieces with prominent properties of collage included. Rejecting the normalities of Minimalism, the artist transformed his style in a way that inspired those who had lost hope for the practice. Stella lives in Malden, Massachusetts and is based in New York and Rock Tavern, New York.

      View More Works

258

Del Mar, from Race Track Series (G. 377, A. 73)

1972
Screenprint in colors, on Gemini Rag Board, with full margins.
I. 15 x 75 in. (38.1 x 190.5 cm)
S. 20 1/4 x 80 1/8 in. (51.4 x 203.5 cm)

Signed, dated and numbered 'A.P. II' in pencil (one of 9 artist's proofs in Roman numerals, the edition was 75), published by Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles (with their blindstamps and inkstamp on the reverse), framed.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$5,000 - 7,000 

Sold for $10,160

Contact Specialist

editions@phillips.com
212-940-1220

Editions & Works on Paper

New York Auction 16 - 17 April