JOSEPH STELLA
Muro Lucano, Italy.
Watercolor and pencil on paper, circa 1920. 350x465 mm; 14x18½ inches. Signed and titled in pencil, lower center recto.Provenance: Private collection, Chicago.Stella (1877-1946) was born in Muro Lucano, a village in the province of Potenza, Italy, and came to New York in 1896, following in his older brother's footsteps, with the intention of becoming a physician. He soon abandoned his medical studies and turned instead to art, enrolling at the Art Students League and the New York School of Art under William Merritt Chase (1849-1916), with whom Edward Hopper had studied with several years previous. During the 1910s and 1920s, Stella became one of the foremost American modernist artists through his association with Gertrude Stein and her circle in Paris. He was friends with many of the avant-garde artists of the time, notably Marcel Duchamp and Albert Gleizes along with the Italian Futurist artists Umberto Boccioni and Gino Severini.