Copper and Aluminum Paintings 1960-1962

Copper and Aluminum Paintings 1960-1962

Avicenna, 1960

Avicenna, 1960

Three Works Above: “Telluride”, “Creede 1”, “Creede 2” all completed in 1961

Stella began to deviate from his normal rectangular canvas after his “Black Paintings” and began to adopt a more geometric and dynamic canvas for his works. Using copper and aluminum oil paint with house painters’ brushes, in this series Stella set aside the idea of illusionistic space in painting for the physicality of the flat surface. “Avicenna” is one of his more famous pieces from the collection, and there is an actual hole in the middle of the canvas. What is interesting about this painting and a few others from this series is that the stripes and notches tend to have the illusion of projecting and receding planes, despite the fact that he aimed for minimalism and did not want these works to give off an illusion at all. It is said that the idea of using metallic paint came when Stella was studying Pollock, it is also rumored that Jasper Johns had an influence on this series in that “the image and the field are identical.”