One of the few American painters of the late 1960s concerned with regulated structure and color to make successful prints, Stella's art contains elements of minimal, hard-edge and op art. In discussing his work Stella said:
"l got tired of other people's paintings and began to make my own. I found, however, that I not only got tired of looking at my own paintings but that l also didn't like painting them at all. The painterly problem of what to put here and there, and how to make it go with what was already there, became more and more difficult and the solutions more and more unsatisfactory. Finally l had to face two problems: one was spatial and the other methodological . . . . The obvious answer was symmetry -- make it the same all over….The solution I arrived at -- and there are probably others although l know of only one, color density -- forces illusionistic space out of the painting at a constant rate by using a regulated pattern. The remaining problem was simply to find a method of paint application which followed and complemented the design solution. This was done by using the house painter's technique and tools.
The present print, although reduced in scale, retains the sensibility of his geometric abstract paintings.
