Sanor
Frank Stella
Sanor
mixed media
1996
An original hand-signed Frank Stella mixed media print.
1996
Original lithograph, screenprint, etching, aquatint, relief, and engraving printed from 29 runs from 10 aluminum plates, 3 screens and I assembled plate made from 1 Lexan plastic base plate and 19 irregularly shaped elements (8 magnesium and 3 copper plates; 8 Lexan plastic elements) on white TGL hand-made paper.
Hand-signed and dated in pencil lower center F. Stella ’96.
A superb impression of the definitive state, from the edition of 35, numbered in pencil also lower center (there were 21 additional proofs of various types, for an overall edition of 56). One of seventeen plates from the series Imaginary Places II. Published by Tyler Graphics Ltd., Mount Kisco, New York; printed by Kenneth Tyler, Lee Funderburg, Kevin Falco, Michael Mueller, Christopher Creyts, Anthony Kirk, Brian Maxwell, Gedi Sibony and Susan Hover on paper hand-made by Tom Strianese and John Hutcheson. Bearing the Tyler Graphics, Ltd. blindstamp in the paper lower center, also bearing the Tyler Graphics workshop number “FS94-3125” in pencil verso.
Catalog: Axsom 247; Tyler Graphics FS94-3125
Size Image: 29 inches (diameter)
Framed Size: 40 x 40 x 3 1/4 inches
The prints of Imaginary Places stand alongside the paintings and reliefs of the Imaginary Places Series (1994-2004). Begun in the same year, that are recognizable for their teeming compositions of twisting, colliding, and knotted forms, held in check by their formats. Shapes often spill out of these formats, seeming to escape, even obliterate their containers. To realize these teeming compositions, Stella brought into play his nearly full palette of printmaking media for the Imaginary Places prints – including lithography, relief printing, etching, aquatint, engraving, mezzotint and screenprinting.
Motifs in the Imaginary Places prints are both borrowed and new. For his preliminary collages and metal elements to be incorporated into printing matrices, Stella called upon, in part, what the TGL workshop called the “Stella file” of discarded proofs and cast-aside plates and brought in portions of his cast- and poured-aluminum plates created when he was working on his sculpture at the Polisch Tallix Fine Arts Foundry in Rock Haven, New York. He variously drew upon, among other sources, fragments of elements from the Circuits prints, including leftover sections of the “lace tablecloth” relief magnesium plates, and the Moby Dick prints.
