Hark! (from Waves II), 1988
Hand-signed, dated and numbered in pencil
From an edition of 60
72 ½ x 53 ¾ inches (184.2 x 136.5 cm.)
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Frank Stella was one of the most influential figures in postwar American art, renowned for continually challenging the boundaries between painting, printmaking, and sculpture. Emerging in the late 1950s with his groundbreaking *Black Paintings*, Stella initially became associated with Minimalism through compositions that rejected illusionistic space in favor of geometry, repetition, and the physical presence of the artwork itself. Over subsequent decades, however, his work became increasingly complex, colorful, and sculptural, evolving into exuberant constructions of overlapping forms and dynamic movement. Printmaking played an essential role in this development, providing Stella with a laboratory in which he could combine multiple processes, materials, and layers to create works possessing much of the physical and visual complexity of his paintings and reliefs.
*Hark!*, 1988, comes from Stella’s celebrated *Waves II* series, part of his extensive engagement with Herman Melville’s *Moby-Dick*. Stella titled works from this period after chapters and passages from Melville’s novel, translating its themes of the sea, movement, conflict, and adventure into a highly abstract visual language. In *Hark!*, interlocking geometric and curvilinear forms appear to surge across the composition, creating an extraordinary sense of depth, turbulence, and movement. The work’s elaborate construction reflects the increasingly ambitious nature of Stella’s printmaking: lithography, linoleum cut, and screenprinting are combined with hand-coloring, marbling, and collage, blurring the distinction between a traditional editioned print and a unique, constructed artwork. Executed on T.H. Saunders and Somerset wove papers and published by Waddington Graphics, London, *Hark!* measures an imposing 72 ½ × 53 ¾ inches (184.2 × 136.5 cm) and was produced in an edition of only 60, with additional artist’s proofs. Each example is hand-signed, dated, and numbered in pencil, and the work is recorded as Axsom 193 in the catalogue raisonné.
