Frank Stella
Palmito Ranch (1961)
MFA Houston acquires major work by Frank Stella The Museum of Fine Arts Houston has acquired ‘Palmito Ranch’, a 1961 work by Frank Stella, from the artist’s important ‘Benjamin Moore’ series, which started a new current of Minimalism in American art.]]>
September 26th 2011, source: MFA Houston / theartwolf
Executed in 1961, “Palmito Ranch” is part of Stella’s “Benjamin Moore” series, so named for the Benjamin Moore paints that the artist chose for their intense colors and flat and matte surfaces. The Museum explains that “Palmito Ranch” is “unique in its understated, stacked composition, where painted line and raw canvas create an even, horizontal rhythm“.
“Palmito Ranch builds on the MFAH’s longstanding commitment to the work of Frank Stella”, said Gwendolyn H. Goffe, interim director of the MFAH. The Museum first acquired one of the artist’s shaped canvases in 1973, and nine years later the MFAH commissioned the artist a series of temporary murals for the “Stella by Starlight” gala.
The acquisition of “Palmito Ranch” is a combination museum purchase from the Caroline Wiess Law Accession Endowment and a gift from the artist, who made the donation in memory of Peter C. Marzio (1943-2010), the late MFAH director.
In addition to this important acquisition, the MFAH has received a related gift, Stella’s 1967 “Black Series II”, which are among the artist’s first explorations of lithography.
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