Carolyn Vaughn – författare

In addition to his achievements in abstract painting and sculpture, Frank Stella has also made major contributions to the history of the modern print. An exploration of the artist’s innovative use of the medium, Frank Stella: Prints reveals the intimate relationships between Stella’s prints and his works in other mediums, demonstrating how Stella blasted a hole in the traditional tools and aesthetics of printmaking with works of compelling complexity and beauty.Frank Stella: Prints registers in chronological sequence more than 300 editioned prints, reproduced in full color, including works in series and portfolios. Related works in other mediums--paintings, metal reliefs, maquettes and sculpture--are also illustrated for comparison. Complete documentation of each print offers a privileged insight into the creative process behind these works of art. An introductory essay, prefaces to each series and comments on individual prints provide background information, analysis and interpretation. Frank Stella: Prints also features an illustrated chronology, a glossary tailored to Stella’s practice, a bibliography and an index.Soon after arriving in New York in the late 1950s, Frank Stella (born 1936) came to prominence with his striped Black Paintings and shaped canvases. His early painting project reduced the medium to its most fundamental elements and introduced a key concept of Minimalism at an early date: “What you see is what you see.” But it was not long before Stella, a restlessly experimental worker, abandoned austerity for brighter colors, irregular shapes, rougher textures and gestural brushstrokes.

‘I’m for mechanical art’, said Andy Warhol (1928–1987). ‘When I took up silkscreening, it was to more fully exploit the preconceived image through commercial techniques of multiple reproduction.’ Printmaking was a vital artistic practice for Andy Warhol. Prints figure prominently throughout his career from his earliest work as a commercial illustrator in the 1950s, to the collaborative silkscreens made in the Factory during the 1960s and the commissioned portfolios of his final years. In their fascination with popular culture and provocative subverting of the difference between original and copy, Warhol’s prints are recognized now as a prescient forerunner of today’s hypersophisticated, hyper-saturated and hyper-accelerated visual culture. Andy Warhol Prints, published to accompany a major exhibition at the Portland Art Museum – the largest of its kind ever to be presented – includes approximately 250 of Warhol’s prints and ephemera from the collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer, including iconic silkscreen prints of Campbell’s soup cans and Marilyn Monroe. Organized chronologically and by series, Andy Warhol Prints establishes the range of Warhol’s innovative graphic production as it evolved over the course of four decades, with a particular focus on Warhol’s use of different printmaking techniques, beginning with illustrated books and ending with screen printing.