MOBY-DICK: Frank Stella and Herman Melville

Organized by
Grand Rapids Art Museum

Made possible by
James and Mary Nelson
J.C. Huizenga
Karl and Patricia Betz
Wege Foundation
John and Marilyn Drake
and additional sponsors

Media Sponsor
Michigan Radio 104.1

January 23 - May 3, 2009

In 1851, Herman Melville published his novel Moby-Dick. It was destined to become one of the great classics of American literature. The story of man’s struggle against the overwhelming powers of nature did not initially attract readers. The book was not well received, and Melville died in 1891 without knowing the fame his work would ultimately achieve.

In 1930, Moby-Dick was reissued, first as a limited edition by Lakeside Press in Chicago and then by Random House in New York.  It included 280 illustrations based upon ink drawings commissioned by Lakeside from Rockwell Kent. This special presentation of Melville’s book secured the novel’s belated success. Achieving widespread acclaim, Moby-Dick became a standard reading requirement in schools across the country as one of the great American novels.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
From 1985 to 1997, leading American painter and printmaker, Frank Stella, created a major series of works linked to Melville’s classic Moby-Dick. He created one or more works for each of the novel’s 135 chapters. The completed series consists of 266 pieces: large metal reliefs, monumental sculptures, a mural, and an extended series of mixed-media prints.  The series that Stella named for Melville’s novel is his greatest sustained achievement in four decades of making art.

The exhibition MOBY-DICK: Frank Stella and Herman Melville brings together more than thirty monumental printed works from Stella’s series, including his definitive masterpiece, The Fountain. Twenty-four feet in length, The Fountain is Stella’s largest and most complex work on paper. The woodblocks with metal inlay plates for The Fountain are included in the exhibition on loan from The National Gallery of Australia. A preamble to the exhibition includes a group of Rockwell Kent’s ink-drawings for Moby-Dick and the original Lakeside edition of the book.

Frank Stella
(American, b. 1936)
The Fountain, 1992
Colour woodcut, etching, aquatint, relief, drypoint, screenprint, collage, printed from three woodblocks
©Frank Stella / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Reproduction, including downloading of Frank Stella works is prohibited by copyright laws and international conventions without the express written permission of Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York