Frank Stella  American (Malden, Massachusetts, 1936)  In 1958,
just a few years after graduating from Princeton, Frank Stella
began his groundbreaking "black paintings." These austere works
were composed of parallel stripes determined by the proportions
of the canvas and the width of the paintbrush. They had no
meaning beyond their physical form; or, as Stella famously put
it, "What you see is what you see."  His subsequent practice,
while diverse, has continued his interrogation of abstraction.
Paintings based on the rejection of the conventionally
rectangular canvas gave way to complex wall reliefs made from
paint, cardboard, and felt. He further blurred the distinction
between painting and sculpture in baroque works that practically
burst off the wall.