- Title
- Getty Tomb
- Date Made
- 1959
- Medium
- Black enamel on canvas
- Dimensions
- 84 x 96 in. (213.36 x 243.84 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.63.21
- Collecting Area
- Modern Art
- Curatorial Notes
Getty Tomb is one of about two dozen works by Frank Stella known as the Black Paintings (1958–60), which are composed of parallel bands of flat black paint separated by thin lines of unpainted canvas. To make these works, Stella applied commercial paint with a house painter’s brush, which dictated the width of the black stripes. Eliminating illusionistic space and any narrative or symbolic allusions, this series called attention to the physical properties of paint and canvas, conveying Stella’s statement that “what you see is what you see.” With their highly controlled brushwork and minimal compositions, the Black Paintings were a radical departure from Abstract Expressionism.
Wall label, 2021.
- Provenance
The artist (1936-2024); [Leo Castelli Gallery, New York]; [Everett Ellin Gallery, Los Angeles]; sold in 1963 to LACMA.
- Selected Bibliography
- Richardson, Brenda. Frank Stella: The Black Paintings. Baltimore: The Baltimore Museum of Art, 1976.
- Hunter, Sam. Art Since 1950, American and International. Seattle: Seattle World's Fair, 1962.
- Zelevansky, Lynn, V. L. Hillings, M. Peternák, B. LaBelle, P. Frank, I. Katzenstein, A. Le Blanc. Beyond Geometry: Experiments in Form, 1940s-70s. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2004.
- Tuchman, Maurice. Ten Years of Contemporary Art Council Acquisitions: Inaugurating The New Contemporary Art Galleries. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1973.
- Tuchman, Maurice; R. Welsh; C. Blotkamp; C. Eldredge; S. Ringbom; Å. Fant; J. Bowlt; C. Douglas; R. Long; L. Henderson; H. Watts; J. Moffitt; W. Rushing; W. Moritz; D. Kuspit; G. Imanse; E. Kasinec; B. Kerdimun; R. Galbreath; Judi Freeman. The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890-1985. New York: Abbeville Press, 1986.
- Storr, Robert. Gerhard Richter: Forty Years of Painting. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2002.
- Powell III, Earl A., Robert Winter, and Stephanie Barron. The Robert O. Anderson Building. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1986.
- Colpitt, Frances. Abstract Art in the Late Twentieth Century. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
- Orsenna, Erik; Zelevansky, Lynn; Franz, Erich; Morellet, Francois; Le Nouene, Patrick. Francois Morellet: 1926-2006 etc...Recentes Fantaisies. France: Musee des Beaux-Arts d'Angers, 2006.
- Copyright
- © Frank Stella / Artists Rights Society (ARS) New York
