Joseph Stella (born Giuseppe Michele Stella, June 13, 1877 – November 5, 1946) was an Italian-born American

Futurist Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futures studies or futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities ...

painter best known for his depictions of industrial America, especially his images of the

Brooklyn Bridge The Brooklyn Bridge is a cable-stayed suspension bridge in New York City, spanning the East River between the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Opened on May 24, 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was the first fixed crossing of the East River. It w ...

. He is also associated with the American Precisionist movement of the 1910s–1940s.

Early life and education

Stella was born to a middle-class family in Italy, in Muro Lucano, a village in the

province of Potenza The province of Potenza (; Potentino: ) is a province in the Basilicata region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Potenza. Geography It has an area of and a total population of 369,538 (as of 2017). There are 100 ''comuni'' (singular: ''com ...

. His grandfather Antonio and his father Michele were attorneys, but he came to

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

in 1896 to study medicine, following in the footsteps of his older brother Doctor Antonio Stella. At that time, Giuseppe changed his name to Joseph. However, he quickly abandoned his medical studies and turned instead to art, studying at the Art Students League and the New York School of Art under William Merritt Chase.

Career

United States

Stella's first paintings were

Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (; ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), mononymously known as Rembrandt was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker, and Drawing, draughtsman. He is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in ...

esque depictions of city slum life. A remarkable draftsman, he made drawings throughout the various phases of his career, beginning as an

academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...

realist with a particular interest in immigrant and ethnic life. From 1905 to 1909, he worked as an illustrator, publishing his realist drawings in magazines. "He prowled the streets, sketchpad and pencil in hand, alert to catch the pose of the moment, the detail of costume or manner that told the story of a life." In 1908, he was commissioned for a series on industrial

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

, later published in ''The Pittsburgh Survey''.

Europe

Stella returned to Italy in 1909. He was unhappy in the United States, writing that he longed to be back in his native land after "an enforced stay among enemies, in a black funereal land over which weighed ... the curse of a merciless climate." His return to Europe led to his first extensive contact with

Modernism Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

, which would ultimately mold his distinctive personal style, notable for its strong color and sweeping and dynamic lines. By 1911, he had departed Italy, where the omnipresence of the Renaissance presented its own kind of obstacle for contemporary painters, and relocated to Paris. When he arrived, "

Fauvism Fauvism ( ) is a style of painting and an art movement that emerged in France at the beginning of the 20th century. It was the style of (, ''the wild beasts''), a group of modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong col ...

Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement which began in Paris. It revolutionized painting and the visual arts, and sparked artistic innovations in music, ballet, literature, and architecture. Cubist subjects are analyzed, broke ...

, and

Futurism Futurism ( ) was an Art movement, artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, and objects such as the ...

were in full swing," he wrote, and "

here Here may refer to: Music * ''Here'' (Adrian Belew album), 1994 * ''Here'' (Alicia Keys album), 2016 * ''Here'' (Cal Tjader album), 1979 * ''Here'' (Edward Sharpe album), 2012 * ''Here'' (Idina Menzel album), 2004 * ''Here'' (Merzbow album), ...

was in the air the glamor of a battle." It was the right place to be, at just the right time, for a man of Stella's curiosity, openness to new trends, and ambition. In

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, Stella attended the salon of

Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh), and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris in 1903, and ...

, where he met many other painters. " teinfound the big and boisterous painter rather like er friend, the poetApollinaire; they both had a fund of sarcastic wit that was frequently turned on their hosts." Stella's view of his hostess was indeed sarcastic: she sat, he wrote, "enthroned on a sofa in the middle of the room," surrounded by her Cézannes and

Picasso Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...

s, "with the forceful solemnity of a pythoness or a sibyl ... in a high and distant pose." Having met

Umberto Boccioni Umberto Boccioni (; ; 19 October 1882 – 17 August 1916) was an influential Italian painter and sculptor. He helped shape the revolutionary aesthetic of the Futurism movement as one of its principal figures. Despite his short life, his approach ...

and befriended

Gino Severini Gino Severini (7 April 1883 – 26 February 1966) was an Italian Painting, painter and a leading member of the Futurism (art), Futurist movement. For much of his life he divided his time between Paris and Rome. He was associated with neo-classici ...

in Europe, he became associated with the Italian Futurists and began to incorporate Futurist principles into his art, though he was also interested in the structural experiments of the Cubists and the dynamic color of the Fauves.

Return to United States

Returning to

in 1913, Stella wanted to give the United States a second try. It was a decision he did not regret, although, as art historian Wanda Corn noted, "his culture shock never abated." He became a part of the

Alfred Stieglitz Alfred Stieglitz (; January 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946) was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his 50-year career in making photography an accepted art form. In addition to his photography, Stieglitz was k ...

and the Walter Arensberg circles in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

and enjoyed close relationships with fellow expatriates

Albert Gleizes Albert Gleizes (; 8 December 1881 – 23 June 1953) was a French artist, theoretician, philosopher, a self-proclaimed founder of Cubism and an influence on the School of Paris. Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger wrote the first major treatise on ...

and leader of the

New York Dada New York Dada was a regionalized extension of Dada, an artistic and cultural movement between the years 1913 and 1923. Usually considered to have been instigated by Marcel Duchamp's ''Fountain (Duchamp), Fountain'' exhibited at the first exhibitio ...

movement

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, ; ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, Futurism and conceptual art. He is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Pica ...

(Stella and Arensberg accompanied Duchamp to the plumbing supply store in 1917 to purchase the infamous urinal.). As a result of these associations, he had almost as many opportunities as he had known in Europe to be among kindred spirits and to see advanced new art. In 1913–14, he painted ''Battle of Lights, Coney Island,'' one of the earliest and greatest American Futurist works. The legendary

Armory Show The 1913 Armory Show, also known as the International Exhibition of Modern Art, was organized by thAssociation of American Painters and Sculptors It was the first large exhibition of modern art in America, as well as one of the many exhibition ...

of 1913, in which he participated, provided him with greater impetus to experiment with modernist styles. ''Der Rosenkavalier'' (1914) and ''Spring (The Procession – A Chromatic Sensation)'' (1914–16) are vigorous color abstractions. Following the Armory Show, Stella also became a much-talked-about figure in the New York City art world, an object of virulent attacks from conservative critics who found Modernism threatening and inexplicable and an object of fascination to younger, more adventurous artists. In the view of art historian Sam Hunter, "Among the modern paintings at the Armory Show, Duchamp's '' Nude Descending a Staircase'', Picabia's ''Procession at Seville'', and Stella's Futurist ''Battle of Lights, Coney Island'' came to exert the most seminal influence on American painters." A friend noted that the painting "caused a general sensation, an artistic upheaval as sudden and unexpected as it was universal n avant-garde circles" Collector and art educator Katherine Dreier included Stella among those artists whose work she sought to promote under the auspices of her Societe Anonyme, New York's first museum dedicated exclusively to advanced contemporary art, which opened its doors in 1920. In New York City during the 1920s, Stella became fascinated with the geometric quality of the architecture of

Lower Manhattan Lower Manhattan, also known as Downtown Manhattan or Downtown New York City, is the southernmost part of the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of Manhattan. The neighborhood is History of New York City, the historical birthplace o ...

. In these works he further assimilated elements of Cubism and Futurism. In ''Brooklyn Bridge'' (1919–20), he shows his fascination with the sweeping lines of the Roeblings' bridge, a motif he used several years before poet Hart Crane turned to this structure as a symbol of modernity. Stella's depictions of the bridge feature the diagonal cables that sweep downward forcefully, providing directional energy. While these dynamic renderings suggest the excitement and motion of modern life, in Stella's hands, the image of the bridge also becomes a powerful icon of stability and solidarity. Among his other well-known paintings is ''New York Interpreted (The Voice of the City)'' (1922), a five-paneled work (almost twenty-three feet long and over eight feet high) patterned after a religious

altarpiece An altarpiece is a painting or sculpture, including relief, of religious subject matter made for placing at the back of or behind the altar of a Christian church. Though most commonly used for a single work of art such as a painting or sculpture, ...

, but depicting bridges and skyscrapers instead of saints. This work reflects the belief, common at the time, that industry was displacing religion as the center of modern life. The painting is in the collection of the Newark Museum in

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the List of municipalities in New Jersey, most populous City (New Jersey), city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, the county seat of Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County, and a principal city of the New York metropolitan area. ...

. "At a time when virtually all modernists tried their hand at representing the city," Wanda Corn wrote, "Stella's painting is the summa." In the 1930s, Stella worked on the

Federal Art Project The Federal Art Project (1935–1943) was a New Deal program to fund the visual arts in the United States. Under national director Holger Cahill, it was one of five Federal Project Number One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administratio ...

and later traveled to Europe,

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

, and the

West Indies The West Indies is an island subregion of the Americas, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, which comprises 13 independent island country, island countries and 19 dependent territory, dependencies in thr ...

, locations that inspired him to work in various modes. He restlessly moved from one style to the next, from realism to

abstraction Abstraction is a process where general rules and concepts are derived from the use and classifying of specific examples, literal (reality, real or Abstract and concrete, concrete) signifiers, first principles, or other methods. "An abstraction" ...

surrealism Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...

. He executed abstract city themes, religious images, botanical and nature studies, erotic and steamy

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

landscapes, and colorful still lifes of vegetables, fruits, and flowers. Stella's works from his post-Armory Show period, however, were problematic for the cultivation of a sustained career. Once he had ceased painting in a Futurist or quasi-Cubist mode and had finished with his period of Precisionist factory images (circa 1920), he was not aligned with any particular movement. His concerns, as well as his approach to painting, became less timely, more personal and idiosyncratic. ''Tree of My Life'' (1919), like many later Stella works, is "baroque and operatic," a garden scene out of Bosch, and his figure studies (usually female, often Madonna-like) are decoratively, extravagantly embellished. His numerous floral works border on the surreal but, in their lushness and excess, could not accurately be characterized as a part of the Surrealist movement. Critic

Lewis Mumford Lewis Mumford (October 19, 1895 – January 26, 1990) was an American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic. Particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture, he had a broad career as a ...

called him a "puzzling painter" at that point, commenting, "I have seen the fissure between his realism and his fantasy widen into an abyss." Stella's strong draftsmanship is evident in the many different kinds of images he created throughout his life. He is especially respected today for his portraits on paper drawn in silverpoint, or silverpoint and oil, most from the 1920s. His renderings of

Walt Whitman Walter Whitman Jr. (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist, and journalist; he also wrote two novels. He is considered one of the most influential poets in American literature and world literature. Whitman incor ...

, Marcel Duchamp, the artist Louis Eilshemius, and his friend, the composer

Edgar Varese Edgar is a commonly used masculine English given name, from an Anglo-Saxon name ''Edgar'' (composed of '' ead'' "rich, prosperous" and '' gar'' "spear"). Like most Anglo-Saxon names, it fell out of use by the Late Middle Ages; it was, howeve ...

, are works of exceptional sensitivity to line, facial detail, and the intellectual aura of the sitter. A lesser-known aspect of Stella's work is the collages he made in the 1920s, consisting of scraps of discarded paper, wrappers (some with the commercial logo or label still visible), and other bits of urban debris, often slashed with brush strokes of paint. Though Stella was "attracted to the grandiose, mechanized aspects of the city, ewas also drawn to its anonymous, unnoticed discards...the detritus of human existence." These are works in the spirit of the German collage artist

Kurt Schwitters Kurt Hermann Eduard Karl Julius Schwitters (20 June 1887 – 8 January 1948) was a German artist. He was born in Hanover, Germany, but lived in exile from 1937. Schwitters worked in several genres and media, including Dadaism, Constructivism (a ...

and the anti-"high art" ethos of the Dada movement, which always interested Stella. By the late 1930s, Stella's work attracted considerably less attention than it had in previous decades. His truculent personality had alienated many old friends, and his style no longer spoke to the times. "Stella's health and critical fortunes sank in he years prior to World War II Emotionally cut off from the New York art world, even his retrospective at the Newark Museum in 1939 failed to reestablish him. Though successful as a presentation, the show was less enthusiastically reviewed than Stella had anticipated, and he later complained of not being able to induce anyone living in New York City to see it."

Death

Stella was diagnosed with

cardiovascular disease Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is any disease involving the heart or blood vessels. CVDs constitute a class of diseases that includes: coronary artery diseases (e.g. angina, heart attack), heart failure, hypertensive heart disease, rheumati ...

in the early 1940s and became subject to increasing periods of morbid anxiety. On November 5, 1946, he died of

heart failure Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome caused by an impairment in the heart's ability to Cardiac cycle, fill with and pump blood. Although symptoms vary based on which side of the heart is affected, HF ...

at age 69. He is interred in a mausoleum at Woodlawn Cemetery in

The Bronx The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...

, New York City.

Major works in public collections

* ''Pittsburgh Factory Scene'' (1908–1918):

Minneapolis Institute of Art The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) is an arts museum located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Home to more than 90,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history, Mia is one of the List of largest art museums, largest ar ...

, Minneapolis * ''Battle of Lights, Coney Island, Mardi Gras'' (1913–14): Yale University Art Gallery * ''Battle of Lights, Coney Island'' (1913–14): Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska–Lincoln * ''Der Rosenkavalier'' (1914):

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...

* ''Pyrotechnic Fires'' (1919): Museum of Fine Arts Houston * ''Brooklyn Bridge'' (1919–20): Yale University Art Gallery * ''New York Interpreted (The Voice of the City)'' (1920–22): Newark Museum * ''Factories'' (1920):

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

*''The Birth of Venus'' (1922): Salisbury House * ''By-Product Plants'' (1923–26): Chicago Art Institute * ''The Amazon'' (1925–26):

Baltimore Museum of Art The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) in Baltimore, Maryland, is an art museum that was founded in 1914. The BMA's collection of 95,000 objects encompasses more than 1,000 works by Henri Matisse anchored by the Cone Collection of modern art, ...

* ''The Virgin'' (1926):

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...

* ''Tree, Cactus, Moon'' (1927–28): Reynolda House Museum, North Carolina * ''American Landscape'' (1929):

Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill, Minneapolis, Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in ...

* ''Lotus'' (1929): Hirshhorn Museum * ''Flowers, Italy'' (1930):

Phoenix Art Museum The Phoenix Art Museum is the largest art museum, museum for visual art in the southwest United States. Located in Phoenix, Arizona, the museum is . It displays international exhibitions alongside its comprehensive collection of more than 18,0 ...

* ''Smoke Stacks'' (1935): Indiana State University Art Collection * ''Old Brooklyn Bridge'' (1941): Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Art market

On 13 November 2018 a painting by Stella titled ''Tree of My Life'' (1919) sold at

Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie (auctioneer), James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, and it has additional salerooms in New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Milan, Geneva, Shan ...

New York for US$5,937,500; a world record for a work by Stella at public auction.Results: Christie's 20th Century Week Totals $1.1 billion. Individual Artist Records
Christie's

Selected works

File:'Purissima' by Joseph Stella, 1927, High Museum of Art.JPG, ''Purissima'' ( Purest),1927 File:Hibiscus, Shell, and Plate by Joseph Stella.jpg, ''Hibiscus, Shell, and Plate'' File:Joseph Stella serenade-a-christmas-fantasy.jpg, ''Serenade a Christmas fantasy'' File:Joseph Stella - Spring (The Procession) - 1941.692 - Yale University Art Gallery.jpg, ''Spring (The Procession)'' File:Madonna by Joseph Stella.jpg, ''Madonna'' File:Joseph Stella - Still Life - 2015.10.1 - Reading Public Museum.jpg, ''Still Life'' File:Joseph Stella men-women-and-crian-as-around-the-world-united-around-jesus.jpg, ''Men and women around the world united around

Jesus Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...

'' File:Joseph Stella flowers-italy-1931.jpg, ''Flowers, Italy''

References

Sources

Sullivan Goss, Joseph Stella
* Brown, Milton. ''American Painting from the Armory Show to the Depression''. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955. * Corn, Wanda. "An Italian in New York" (pp. 135–190) in Corn, ''The Great American Thing: Modern Art and National Identity, 1915–1935''. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. * Davidson, Abraham A. ''Early American Modernist Painting, 1910–1935''. New York: DaCapo, 1994 edition. * Haskell, Barbara. ''Joseph Stella''. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art (exhibition catalogue), 1994. * Hughes, Robert. ''American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America''. New York: Knopf, 1997. * Hunter, Sam. ''Modern American Painting and Sculpture''. New York: Dell, 1959. * Jaffe, Irma. ''Joseph Stella''. New York: Fordham University Press, 1988 edition. * Salvatore Pagliuca "Antonio Stella, medico e filantropo, a New York", Basilicata Regione

External links

Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
AskArt page for Joseph Stella

(1931)

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Stella, Joseph 1877 births 1946 deaths 20th-century American male artists 20th-century American painters American male painters Art Students League of New York alumni Burials at Woodlawn Cemetery (Bronx, New York) Federal Art Project artists Futurist painters Italian emigrants to the United States People from Muro Lucano Precisionism Progressive Era in the United States Students of William Merritt Chase