Frank Stella
Damascus Gate (Stretch Variation III)

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Images(4)

Artist Frank Stella (American, 1936–2024)American, 1936–2024

CultureAmerican

Titles

Damascus Gate (Stretch Variation III)

Date1970

Made inUnited States

MediumAlkyd on canvas

Dimensions120 × 600 in. (304.8 × 1524 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by Alice Pratt Brown

Object number2009.1171

Current Location

The Nancy and Rich Kinder Building

Atrium Floor 3

On view

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Department

Modern and Contemporary Art

Object Type

PAINTING

DescriptionFrank Stella began his ongoing series of Protractor paintings in 1967, in part inspired by his love of Islamic art and architecture. The series is divided into three dominant sequences—interlaces, rainbows, and fans—Damascus Gate (Stretch Variation III) is the last of his fan paintings and the most monumental. Stella commented: “My main interest has been to make what is called decorative painting truly viable in unequivocal abstract terms. Decorative, that is, in a good sense, in the sense that it is applied to [Henri] Matisse . . . that’s where I want my painting to go.”
ProvenanceFederal Reserve Bank of Boston; the artist; purchased by MFAH, 2009.
Exhibition History“Frank Stella: A Retrospective," Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, October 30, 2015–March 7, 2016; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, April 1–September 18, 2016; de Young Memorial Museum, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, November 5, 2016–February 26, 2017.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

No visible signature

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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