Conway I
Artist: Frank Stella (American, born 1936)
Date: 1966
Dimensions:
H: 80 in. (203.2 cm); W: 122 in. (309.9 cm); Depth: 4 in. (10.2 cm)
Medium: Fluorescent alkyd and epoxy paints on canvas
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: The 2019 TMA Board of Directors recognizes this work in honor of Director Brian Kennedy and his efforts to both develop strengths and expand directions in the permanent collection. Purchased with funds from the Florence Scott Libbey Bequest in Memory of her Father, Maurice A. Scott and Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey, by exchange
Object number: 2012.99
Label Text:"Painting does not want to be confined—it needs room to move and breathe."
A notch at Conway in the White Mountains of New Hampshire was a favorite fishing place for Frank Stella while on childhood vacations with his father. In the painting named for this location, a parallelogram is locked into and support¬ing a rectangle, creating a diagonal, left-to-right movement.
Conway I belongs to Stella’s Irregular Polygons series of 1965–66, a startlingly dramatic and original body of work. Each of the 11 compositions combines varying numbers of shapes to create daringly irregular outlines. Stella made four versions of each composition, altering their color combinations. These asym¬metrical canvases play with illusion, confronting Stella’s previous emphasis on flatness, while anticipating his career-long exploration of space and volume in both painting and sculpture.
An eight-inch-wide stripe used as an outline wraps around the base and left side, but does not extend into the interior. There, another band of a different color completes the border around the parallelogram. This causes the shape to appear to swivel (Stella indeed said he was inspired by a swiveling mirror in his mother’s bedroom).
A notch at Conway in the White Mountains of New Hampshire was a favorite fishing place for Frank Stella while on childhood vacations with his father. In the painting named for this location, a parallelogram is locked into and support¬ing a rectangle, creating a diagonal, left-to-right movement.
Conway I belongs to Stella’s Irregular Polygons series of 1965–66, a startlingly dramatic and original body of work. Each of the 11 compositions combines varying numbers of shapes to create daringly irregular outlines. Stella made four versions of each composition, altering their color combinations. These asym¬metrical canvases play with illusion, confronting Stella’s previous emphasis on flatness, while anticipating his career-long exploration of space and volume in both painting and sculpture.
An eight-inch-wide stripe used as an outline wraps around the base and left side, but does not extend into the interior. There, another band of a different color completes the border around the parallelogram. This causes the shape to appear to swivel (Stella indeed said he was inspired by a swiveling mirror in his mother’s bedroom).
DescriptionFThis is an “irregular polygon,” a large horizontal rectangle balanced on top of a smaller parallelogram, which looks like an undersized base or plinth in its relation to the larger form. The surface of this irregular polygon-shaped canvas is demarcated from edge to edge by five colors: a hot red that dominates most of the upper rectangle; a pale blue-white “lozenge” shape that partially overlaps into the red field; and three eight-inch stripes in silvery-white, gray-green, and hot pink that serve as distinct boundary lines, describing the shape of the lozenge and of the canvas as a whole. Conway I is painted flatly, though there is a slight sheen to the silvery-white, and the red passage is slightly mottled. Its stretcher is substantial, a full four inches deep.
1. This is an “irregular polygon,” a large horizontal rectangle balanced on top of a smaller parallelogram, which looks like an undersized base or plinth in its relation to the larger form. The surface of this irregular polygon-shaped canvas is demarcated from edge to edge by five colors: a hot red that dominates most of the upper rectangle; a pale blue-white “lozenge” shape that partially overlaps into the red field; and three eight-inch stripes in silvery-white, gray-green, and hot pink that serve as distinct boundary lines, describing the shape of the lozenge and of the canvas as a whole. Conway I is painted flatly, though there is a slight sheen to the silvery-white, and the red passage is slightly mottled. Its stretcher is substantial, a full four inches deep.
1. This is an “irregular polygon,” a large horizontal rectangle balanced on top of a smaller parallelogram, which looks like an undersized base or plinth in its relation to the larger form. The surface of this irregular polygon-shaped canvas is demarcated from edge to edge by five colors: a hot red that dominates most of the upper rectangle; a pale blue-white “lozenge” shape that partially overlaps into the red field; and three eight-inch stripes in silvery-white, gray-green, and hot pink that serve as distinct boundary lines, describing the shape of the lozenge and of the canvas as a whole. Conway I is painted flatly, though there is a slight sheen to the silvery-white, and the red passage is slightly mottled. Its stretcher is substantial, a full four inches deep.
Not on view
In Collection(s)