Preface: ‘When Stella’s Black paintings were first exhibited in 1959 they seemed to have come virtually from nowhere, to have no stylistic heritage, and to represent a rejection of everything that painting seemed to be. Over the years, however, Stella’s work has revealed deep and manifold roots in the tradition of abstract painting. He was one of the first artists of a new generation to react against the spontaneous gesture and loose brushwork of Abstract Expressionism, proposing in its place an art that stressed control and meditative classical rationalism over and against the Romantic freedom of expressionism. Developing his style within the strictures of his own aesthetic of painting, Stella has consistently rejected any allusions to a world outside the painting itself and has striven for purely abstract painting free from vestiges of representational art.’

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 75-100684 The Museum of Modern Art
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