Joseph Stella was born in Muro Lucano, Italy in 1877. He grew up in this small mountain village found in Potenza province near Naples. He was the fourth of five boys born to his parents. His family was fairly well off given that both his father and his grandfather before him were attorneys. Stella himself, however, had no interest in pursuing this tradition. Instead Stella had always shown a zealous interest in the arts. From a young age he had exceptional talent in drawing and could draw Images years ahead of what any other child could produce. Besides art, he excelled in both French and English in school.
Stella moves to New York in 1896 at the age of nineteen with plans pursue a degree in medicine as his older brother had before him. However, it was not long before he deserted his studies in medicine and began to study art. He studied at the Art Students League as well as the New York School of Art where he studied under William Merritt Chase. At the beginning of his career his sketches were mostly realist in nature. He liked to wander the New York City streets with his sketch pad and pencil and draw whatever he saw. He was especially interested in capturing the lives of immigrants and the ethnic culture amidst the city streets. Often his sketches depicted life in the city slums. He eventually found work as an illustrator which allowed him to publish his realist drawings in magazines. This job lasted from 1905 to 1909.In 1908 Stella gets commissioned to do a series of pieces focused on industrial Pittsburgh and the collection is later published in The Pittsburgh Survey.
In 1909 Stella returned to Italy because he was discontent with America. He felt that he was being held in America by force among a merciless population. He could not have picked a better timeto return to Italy, as the Futurist movement in Art has just begun to proliferate in Europe at this time. Along with Futurism, movements such as Fauvism, Cubism, and Modernism have also begun to take root and flourish. He became better acquainted with these styles when he leaves Italy for Paris, France in 1911.It is the influence that these styles have on Stella’s work that allows him to develop his unique style characterized by his use of vivid colors and sweeping, dynamic lines. While in Paris he was among many artists who attended the salon of Gertrude Stein. Through these gatherings he established friendships with the others specifically because of what the others have recounted as his “sarcastic wit”.
He became associated with the Italian Futurists through his friendship with Umberto Boccioni and Gino Severini. However, he wasn’t solely interested in incorporating Futurist elements in his work; He was also fascinated with the bright colors used in Fauvism and the structural nature of Cubism.
In 1913 he decides to return to New York City and befriends Alfred Stieglitz and Walter Arensberg, both of whom were considered leaders of their own social circles. By being a part of these circles he had the opportunities similar to those presented to him in Europe that allowed him to exchange ideas with fellow artists and be exposed to new art. In particular he befriended Marcel Duchamp, who was the leader of the Dadaism movement in New York City. The same year he returns to New York City he painted the Battle of Lights, Coney Island which is one of the first pieces of Futurist artwork created by an American artist with an American, and more specifically a New York, subject matter. He also participated in the Armory Show this same year and his experience there further inspires him to incorporate Modernist art movement elements into his pieces. His piece the Battle of Lights, Coney Island, which was displayed at the Armory show, garnered him a vast audience and people began to recognize as one of the greats and waited to see where he would take art with his future pieces.
During the 1920s Stella becomes particularly interested with the architecture of Downtown Manhattan and its geometric nature. He begins to incorporate Futurist and Cubist elements more and more into his work. The combination of these two growing interests is what lead him to paint his piece Brooklyn Bridge which has become his best known piece today. He worked on this piece beginning in 1919 and into 1920. Another one of his famous pieces created during this time is his New York Interpreted (The Voice of the City) which consisted of five panels that totaled a height of eight feet and a length of over twenty-three feet. Its construction resembled a religious altarpiece but where one usually found the images of saints Stella had depicted bridges and skyscrapers. During the 20s, He also did may portraits of famous persons of New York including Walt Whitman, Marcel Duchamp, Louis Eilsheimus, and Edgar Varese, which he did all in either silverpoint alone or silver point and oil. Some of his lesser known work of the twenties are the collages he made from bits of trash and then painted over them. This was the result of his interest in Dadaism. Perhaps this was part of the drive that lead him to his wandering among styles in the next decade.
In the 1930s Stella’s work progressed rapidly form one style to the next. As part of the Federal Art Project he took part in he travelled to Europe, North Africa and the West Indies. Each of these places not only had its own landscapes and cultural occurrence that provided new subject matter but also their own art styles that inevitably affected the way Stella painted. During this time he created many city themed pieces, religious pieces, botanical and nature sketches, Caribbean landscape pieces, and still life pieces of fruits, vegetables and flowers. His paintings ranged from realist to abstract to surrealist. This continually varying between styles made him lose fame as an artist. He was no longer aligned with any movement and his works became more peculiar and individual.
As a result he became cut off from the New York art world and his fortunes fell. Simultaneously, his health began to decline as well. He was diagnosed with a heart condition on 1940 and died of a heart attack in 1946.
Personally I believe Stella’s work reflects New York City characters and lifestyles and his personal experience in New York. When he first arrived in New York, he was focused on the lives of immigrants and depicted scenes with them as the subject or scenes that they are familiar with. Later in his life he becomes more focused on Downtown New York City and does portraits of other wealthy artists. In each case, he was representing the lifestyle he was familiar with, within New York City. I think his travels to North Africa and the Caribbean brings him back to his immigrant roots which leads him to a difficult internal identity crisis in the 1930s. This crisis clearly manifested in his inability to stick to one style ore even one subject matter. This is also evidence that for Stella, art was alwaysabout personal expression and not making money. He knew his work would be ore saught after if he stuck with Modernist pieces in the 30s but he was no longer interested in modernism. Stella always painted what he wanted and how he wanted to.
Works Cited
“The Brooklyn Bridge: Variation on an Old Theme.” Whitney Museum of American Art: Joseph Stella:. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Oct. 2016.
“Joseph Stella – Bio.” The Phillips Collection. American Art, n.d. Web. 17 Oct. 2016.
“Joseph Stella Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works.” The Art Story. The Art Story, n.d. Web. 17 Oct. 2016.
“Joseph Stella Italian-American, 1877–1946.” Artsy. Artsy, 2016. Web.
“Joseph Stella.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 17 Oct. 2016.
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