CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 4/17/2016

Frank Stella: Prints, A Catalogue Raisonné

Frank Stella's large-scale 1997 print "Juam" is reproduced from the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation's new catalogue raisonné. Named after a remote, fictional tropical island in Herman Melville's Mardi, "Juam" is one of Stella's most ambitious works, a "culminating point" in his Imaginary Places series and a paradigm for later prints. Its template was formed from a carved plywood block, which was then layered with "a crushed aluminum screen, poured-brass printing elements, a spiral form made from cut stainless steel, irregularly shaped copper, bronze and aluminum elements and two magnesium plates." This maniacally complex base created a print with deep embossments, helping to convey the "emotional feel of the tropical landscape in Stella's abstract composition."