Frank Stella
Damascus Gate (Stretch Variation III)

Damascus Gate (Stretch Variation III)

© Frank Stella / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Damascus Gate (Stretch Variation III)
Damascus Gate (Stretch Variation III)
ArtistAmerican, born 1936
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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Object Type
Description

Frank Stella approaches a painting as a physical object in its own right, not a representation of something else. In 1967, Stella—already celebrated for his reductive compositions and shaped canvases—launched the Protractor series, which culminated in Damascus Gate (Stretch Variation III).


These paintings grew out of Stella’s fascination with Islamic art and patterns of decoration, an interest that had been fostered during visits to Spain and Morocco in 1961 and Iran in 1963. On the latter trip he began to draw up a list of cities that would become the titles of the Protractor series. Stella limited the series to three patterns of decoration found in Islamic art: interlaces, rainbows, and fans. At the same time, he reduced these patterns to their essential, boldest forms, increasing the scale of his work so that his paintings assumed the physical proportions of architecture.


Damascus Gate highlights a decisive moment in the artist’s ongoing project to test the limits of painting. Stretching across a 50-foot expanse, it fulfilled the artist’s ambition to take his work up to a truly monumental scale. Its radiant "fans" dance across the surface, while the black borders and curved frame punch into the viewing space.


 


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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