Frank Philip Stella

Frank Philip Stella was born in Malden, Massachusetts, to Italian-American parents. He studied history and painting at Princeton University, where he was mentored by painter William Seitz. Moving to New York City in 1958, Stella reacted against the heroic emotionalism of Abstract Expressionism by using house painter's black enamel and commercial brushes to create flat, uninflected geometric stripes.

In 1959, the Museum of Modern Art included four of his austere "Black Paintings" in its Sixteen Americans exhibition, making 23-year-old Stella an overnight sensation and founding father of Minimalism. Stella famously explained his artistic philosophy: "What you see is what you see." Over six decades, he continually reinvented himself, pioneering shaped canvases (the "Irregular Polygons" and "Protractor" series) with blazing fluorescent colors, before expanding into monumental three-dimensional aluminum reliefs and architectural sculptures. In 1970, at age 34, he became the youngest artist ever given a full retrospective at MoMA.