Agbatana III

A versatile and inventive painter and printmaker, Frank Stella graduated from Princeton University in 1958 and moved to New York. A year later, Stella's work was included in a group exhibition held at the AMAM, Three Young Americans. The four paintings Stella exhibited were characteristic of his early work: stripes drawn in pencil and painted with black, or occasionally, two colors.

In 1960, Stella had his first solo exhibition at the Leo Castelli Gallery. In that year, he also began his career-long exploration of selected themes, for each of which he made a series of related, but varied, paintings; many were made on irregularly shaped canvases. The AMAM painting belongs to the Protractor series, on which Stella worked from 1967 to 1969 (with additions until 1971). These were monumental pictures, celebrating bright color, form, and pattern-the average width being nearly twenty feet; Agbatana III measures ten feet high and fifteen feet wide.

Stella planned the Protractor series to comprise ninety-three paintings: thirty-one different shapes, each with three different designs-described by the artist as "interlaces," "rainbows," and "fans"-and designated by Roman numerals. The titles in the series refer to ancient circular cities in Asia Minor, reflecting Stella's interest in Islamic art and the Near East, where he traveled in 1963. Agbatana III is the third (or "fan") variation in the group named for that ancient city, known today as Hamadan, located in west central Iran. In the fifth century BC, the Greek historian Herodotus described the city as surrounded by seven concentric walls of different colors:

The circuit of the outer wall is very nearly the same with that of Athens. On this wall, the battlements are white, of the next black, of the third scarlet, of the fourth blue, the fifth orange; all these colors with paint. The last two have their battlements coated respectively with silver and gold.

Agbatana III's fan- and wedged-shaped patterns are set on a broad horizontal base and a vertical side that meet at a right angle. The patterns are unified by the brilliant red band that surrounds the picture. In fall 1967, Stella showed several of his first Protractor paintings at the Leo Castelli Gallery. The following year, the AMAM was among the earliest buyers of this ambitious and important body of work, now seen as iconical 1960s painting.