Frank Stella

Born in Malden, Massachusetts, in 1936, Frank Philip Stella was the oldest of three children to Italian-American parents. His father, a gynecologist, painted houses to get through medical school, an experience where young Frank learned about sanding and scraping before painting. This early exposure to the physical process of painting perhaps foreshadowed his later emphasis on the materiality of art. Stella attended Phillips Academy, where he was taught by abstractionist Patr…