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Frank Stella (American, born 1936)
Chocorua II, 1966, fluorescent alkyd and epoxy paints on canvas.
Museum Member purchase 1967.44

In reaction to the evocative use of paint by the Abstract Expressionists, Frank Stella began to make paintings that he considered to be themselves distinct material objects as opposed to representations or personal expressions. Explaining this idea he said that a picture was "a flat surface with paint on it - nothing more". In the late 1950s he produced a series of black striped paintings that are by many accounts the earliest examples of Minimalist art. By the mid 1960s he was making canvasses shaped by interlocking geometric forms. In Chocorua II Stella uses flat house paint, fluorescent colors and a simple design to emphasize the painting’s “thingness,” a term that describes the nature of the painting as a thing in itself.