Lesson Summary

Bancroft Elementary School Art Appreciation Program

Presents

“Scramble”

By Stella

1936-

Lesson Summary:  This lesson introduces the artist Frank Stella and his prolific career as a painter, sculptor, printmaker and architect.

Lesson Information

Artist: Frank Stella (1936-) Art Title: “Scramble” Period or Style: Minimalism Art Element: Color and pattern Project/Medium: Creating a unique color scramble artwork

Prep-work Required

Discussion: Familiarize yourself with current lesson details Art Activity: Be familiar with supplies for activity.

Presentation Materials

Images Photo of Artist; Johns Target; On drive in Cabinet Black Painting; Aluminum series; Copper Series; Scramble; Irregular Polygon series; Protractor series; Polish Village series; Indian Bird; Moby Dick series including Stella standing next to; Sculpture at National Gallery Lesson Plan: Stella In Folder Print outs Stella prints to hang and project In Folder example

Activity Materials

8”x8” Canvas panels 1 per student Pencils, colored tape, scissors, rulers Variety on tables to share

Lesson Objectives  To introduce students to the life and work of artist Frank Stella, one of the 20th century's most innovative and productive artists.  To create a unique modern work of art in pairs.

Presentation Timing  It is important that you KEEP THE ARTIST DISCUSSION SIMPLE. Remember to spend 20% on the discussion portion and 80% on the art activity. Share with students important facts and show a slide show of the art from the artist. Frank Stella  Frank Stella was born the oldest of three children to first-generation Italian-American parents.  In his sophomore year of high school at Phillips Academy in Andover, MA, he began learning to paint from Abstractionist Patrick Morgan, who taught at the school.  Stella continued taking art courses at Princeton University while earning a degree in history.  His Princeton professors, painter Stephen Greene and art historian William Seitz introduced Stella to the New York art world by bringing him to exhibitions in the city, shaping his earliest artistic aesthetic.  These trips to New York galleries exposed Stella to artists such as Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline and particularly Jasper Johns.  Johns' geometric paintings of flags and targets inspired Stella's work during his Princeton years. (Show example of Johns Target)  After graduating, Stella moved to the Lower East Side of New York, where he set up a studio in a former jeweler's store. Almost immediately, he drew massive attention from the art world  Stella achieved almost immediate fame with his Black Paintings (1958–1960).  His art—simple, cool, pure—contrasted dramatically with the Abstract Expressionist style that had dominated mid-century American art.  He was considered a Minimalist. Minimalism was a growing art movement of the 1960’s, which refers to painting or sculpture made with an extreme economy of means and reduced to the essentials of geometric abstraction.  Minimalist art is generally characterized by precise, hard-edged, unitary geometric forms; rigid planes of color—usually cool hues or commercially mixed colors, or sometimes just a single color

© 2004 Bancroft Art Appreciation Committee 3  Frank Stella would never call himself a Minimalist and his later art hardly falls in this category.  One year after his graduation in 1968, his black paintings were included in an exhibit, Sixteen Americans, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.  This was an amazing achievement for a young man of only 23 years of age.  Stella’s paintings are meant to be objects themselves. He does not mean to portray any subject you would recognize and he doesn’t try to paint emotion onto canvas. He wants each painting to be a unique paint-on-canvas (or wood, or aluminum, etc.) object.  Stella was an early advocate of making non-representational paintings, rather than artwork that alluded to underlying meanings, emotions or narratives. He wanted his audiences to appreciate color, shape and structure alone.  From his Black Paintings, Stella moved onto the Aluminum Paintings (1960) and the Copper Paintings (1960-1961), for which he created his own geometrically shaped canvases, challenging the traditional rectangular structure.  Much of his work at this time drew on the stripe motif begun with the Black Paintings, but he soon expanded to brighter colors, examples of this is Scramble. (Show) This painting will be our inspiration for our project. Notice the colors are reversed-the center color on the right square is the outside color on the left.  These led to more complex circular forms into his compositions, especially in the Irregular Polygon (1965-1967) and Protractor (1967-1971) series.  Stella reinvented himself once again, and began incorporating collage and relief into his paintings - For the Polish Village series (taking titles and shapes from the wooden synagogues destroyed by the Nazis) (1970-1973), he attached paper, felt and wood to canvas.  Building on this trajectory, the Indian Birds series (1977-1979) featured an assemblage of painted aluminum forms protruding from the wall.  Next came the Moby Dick series, from (1986-1997) Stella created 266 works, at least one for each of the 135 chapters of Herman Melville's great novel.  As a sculptor, he has made massive metal pieces that are located in public places all over the world. One of his largest outdoor sculptures was commissioned by the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. This piece, completed and installed in 2001, is called Prince Frederick of Homburg  He has constantly reinvented himself, creating increasingly textured, dynamic and vivid work.  Stella still paints and lives in NYC and also is an advocate for artists' right today.

© 2004 Bancroft Art Appreciation Committee 4 Art Activity  Show the students the project example and Stella’s example of Scramble. Discuss with them how the two squares made with the same colors but in a different order look very different.  Have a variety of tape on the tables.  Have them put their names and teacher’s name on the back of their canvas panel.  Have them chose their 5 colors for their design they need to decide what order they will put them in.  They will start by putting the first color of tape on the outer edge all the way around lining up as straight as they can. With the next color lined up with only a little white showing all the way around and so on with the rest of the colors until it is filled in to the center.  If the color arrangement reminds them of something-ice cream cone-melon-Halloween they are invited to name their scramble on the back. and share with the class.  Collect and save for their portfolios.