Stella, Joseph

Stella, Joseph (b Muro Lucano, nr. Potenza, 13 June 1877; d New York, 5 Nov. 1946). Italian-born American painter. He emigrated to the USA in 1896, but from 1909 to 1912 he lived in Italy and France, where he had his first significant contacts with modern art. He was particularly influenced by Futurism and he became the leading American exponent of the style. His first and most famous Futurist painting was Battle of Lights, Coney Island, Mardi Gras (1913–14, Yale Univ. AG), a densely fragmented portrayal of a crowded amusement park at night. In works such as this Stella gave a romanticized image of the industrialized townscape of New York. In particular he was obsessed with Brooklyn Bridge, which he described as ‘a shrine containing all the efforts of the new civilization of America’ (Brooklyn Bridge, 1917–18, Yale Univ. AG). He soon abandoned the Futurist idiom, but industrial and urban themes continued to inspire him. Stella was active in the administration of two leading avant-garde associations—the Society of Independent Artists and the Société Anonyme—and in the early 1920s he experimented with various styles, including Precisionism. In the 1920s and 1930s he spent much of his time in Italy and France (he lived in Paris 1930–4). From the mid-1920s his work grew more conservative and included mystical and sacred subjects.