Frank Stella

Sources: Museum of Modern Art, MoMA: Giufà, la luna, i ladri e le guardie, The Met: Untitled (Kufa Gate Shape), Whitney Museum: Frank Stella retrospective, Allen Memorial Art Museum: Wolfeboro, MoMA: Alkyd enamel paint, Menil Collection Artist Documentation Program, and National Gallery of Art biography and selected works.

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  Oil paint

  Them Apples (1958) uses oil and nails on cardboard and wood, from before Stella's more systematic stripe paintings. MoMA also identifies oil among the materials in the large relief Giufà, la luna, i ladri e le guardie (1984), combined with synthetic polymer paint and industrial coatings on canvas and metal.

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  Acrylic paint

  Untitled (Kufa Gate Shape) (1967) is acrylic on a shaped canvas, its curved colored bands echoing the support. Stella later used acrylic alongside oil, urethane enamel, and fluorescent alkyd in Gobba, zoppa e collotorto (1985). MoMA separately identifies unspecified “synthetic polymer paint” in Giufà; that catalogue term alone does not establish an acrylic-emulsion formula.

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  Alkyd paint

  The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston identifies Palmito Ranch (1961) as alkyd on canvas, while MoMA lists fluorescent alkyd in Fez (2) (1964). Alkyd identifies a resin system, so these coatings overlap with the “fluorescent” entry rather than necessarily representing separate layers of paint.

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  Enamel paint

  Stella painted The Marriage of Reason and Squalor, II (1959) with commercial black enamel and a housepainter's brush. Each stripe followed the canvas's geometry, leaving unpainted gaps between bands. His later “urethane enamel” was also catalogued as an enamel, but is not the same formulation as this early black commercial paint.

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  Metallic paint

  Avicenna (1960) belongs to Stella's Aluminum Paintings, made with inexpensive commercial aluminum paint in repeating bands across a shaped support. In a conservator interview he recalled that the metallic particles settled in the can and that he switched to a brighter brand. The reflective ingredient was paint, not metal leaf.

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  Epoxy paint

  Moultonville I (1966) combines fluorescent alkyd with epoxy paint on canvas, according to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Its cleanly edged color shapes used two industrial paint systems together; “epoxy” in the museum's record is not just a generic description of a durable finish.

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  Polyurethane and urethane paint

  The Whitney identifies urethane enamel alongside oil, fluorescent alkyd, and acrylic in Gobba, zoppa e collotorto (1985), painted on etched magnesium and aluminum. The museum's wording is “urethane enamel”; it does not give a complete polymer formulation, so this connection to polyurethane coatings should not be taken as a precise chemical analysis.

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  Fluorescent paint

  MoMA records Abra Variation I (1969) as fluorescent alkyd on canvas. Its striking color comes from fluorescent pigments in an alkyd-bound paint, not a glow-in-the-dark material. In a Menil Collection interview, Stella also discussed the fading risk of the fluorescent alkyd he used in his Protractor paintings.

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  Antifouling paint

  Stella told Menil conservators that Lake City (1962) used an old-fashioned copper-based antifouling coating made for boat hulls. He applied several coats to its constructed support and described surface and buckling problems. This is a specific historical experiment with commercial marine paint, not a recommendation to use toxic hull coatings for artwork.

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  Watercolor paint

  The Allen Memorial Art Museum records Wolfeboro (1966) as watercolor and pencil on graph paper. Stella used the paper drawing to plan geometric forms; the grid and pencil are drawing materials and should not be confused with the industrial paint surfaces of his canvases.

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  Gouache paint

  Moutonboro (1971), a study from Stella's Irregular Polygon series, is gouache on paper in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The Judd Foundation also holds Study for River of Ponds III (1971), gouache, graphite, and tape on paper. Both are preparatory works, not finished enamel-on-canvas paintings.

Sources: National Gallery of Art: Them Apples, oil, The Met: acrylic Untitled (Kufa Gate Shape), MFA Houston: alkyd and gouache works, MoMA: black enamel in The Marriage of Reason and Squalor, II, Menil Collection: Stella interview on aluminum, copper antifouling and fluorescent alkyd, MFA Houston: Moultonville I, epoxy and fluorescent alkyd, and Whitney: Gobba, zoppa e collotorto, urethane enamel and acrylic.

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  Canvas

  Stella’s canvases include shaped works such as Untitled (Kufa Gate Shape) and large paintings from his stripe series. These flexible supports carry both oil and acrylic compositions. Collection records distinguish canvas from cardboard, wood, and metal supports used in his constructed works.

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  Paper

  Stella used paper for preparatory drawings and gouache studies, including Wolfeboro and works in the Irregular Polygon series. The sheet supports watercolor, gouache, and graphite studies, distinct from his industrial paint surfaces on canvas and metal. These sheets preserve a separate drawing practice alongside his sculptural painting.

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  Cardboard

  Stella’s early Them Apples combines oil and nails on cardboard and wood. The work documents cardboard as a paper-based support within a constructed object, distinct from the shaped canvas works and metal panels he used later. This early assemblage is distinct from his later relief materials.

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  Wood

  Stella used wood supports in works such as Them Apples, which combines oil and nails on cardboard and wood. Later works incorporate wooden forms into relief constructions. The material is a structural support in these assembled objects, distinct from canvas or metal.

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  Aluminum

  Stella’s Aluminum Paintings, including Avicenna, use rigid aluminum supports coated with commercial metallic paint. The metal surface became part of the work’s geometry and reflective effect. This is a distinct material from the wood and canvas supports used in other phases of his practice.

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  Fiberglass

  Stella used fiberglass in later molded constructions, where the lightweight material could form complex three-dimensional shapes. Museum records document fiberglass as part of his relief work, distinct from the flat canvas paintings and metal supports of earlier series. The substrate is part of the structure, not just a flat ground.

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  Stainless Steel

  Stella used stainless steel in shaped and relief works, where polished metal becomes part of the painted object. Museum records identify the material in his late constructions, whose curved reflective surfaces differ from canvas and aluminum panels. Its use marks a shift toward fabricated forms and assembled supports.

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  Steel

  Carbon steel appears in Stella’s industrial supports and shaped works, as documented by museum records. The rigid metal forms a structural part of the relief rather than a conventional painting ground. It is distinct from stainless steel and aluminum used in other works.

Sources: Museum of Modern Art, MoMA: Giufà, la luna, i ladri e le guardie, The Met: Untitled (Kufa Gate Shape), Whitney Museum: Frank Stella retrospective, Allen Memorial Art Museum: Wolfeboro.