June 18, 2023

Joseph Stella is an artist that defies categorization. His most recognizable artworks are modernist large-scale tributes to the marvels of the industrial age, Futurist, vivid, and linear depictions of the Brooklyn Bridge and Coney Island that capture the Gothic architecture within. However, the majority of his works took inspiration from the organic, the perfect imperfections of the natural world.

“I think he felt transformed by nature,” said Audrey Lewis, associate curator at the Brandywine Museum of Art and co-curator of the exhibition. The works shown in the exhibition are wonderfully varied in terms of style, subject, medium, and scale. From tiny watercolors to grandiose oils, exquisite botanical silverpoints to fantastical pastels, a casual observer would almost think they were seeing an exhibition of botanical artworks from dozens of artists rather than only one.

Stella worked as an illustrator early in the twentieth century, a contemporary of N. C. Wyeth, depicting realist images of the lives of immigrants in America. Himself an immigrant from Italy, Stella took inspiration from the scenes he encountered in New York, experimenting with style, form, and medium. His works from this time range from traditional oils to collages made with found materials to commercial works.

He returned to Europe, spending time in his home country and then Paris, where he found a thriving art scene and was exposed to Futurism, Cubism, Dadaism, and other modern influences among the members of Gertrude Stein’s famous salon. Stella returned to New York just in time for the infamous 1913 Armory Show, where he exhibited two paintings alongside Matisse, Cassatt, Monet, Renoir, Picasso, and other pillars of modern art.

Tree of My Life, Stella’s huge and intricately detailed oil, is reproduced on the wall at the Brandywine for a simple reason: the original painting won’t fit through the gallery doors. Both it and Brooklyn Bridge are seven feet tall, giant paintings that force the viewer’s eye to dance around the image to take it all in.

In Tree of My Life, “He is laying out his thematic program of what will recur in this work throughout his career,” said Stephanie Heydt, the Margaret and Terry Stent Curator of American Art at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia. It provides an epic bridge for his work—literally and figuratively. An organic bridge stretches in from the left side of the painting, arching toward the twisted tree trunk that centers the scene.

In a time when there was significant anti-Italian and anti-Catholic sentiment, Stella was both. In his series of Madonnas, Stella was “flouting his identity and his past,” said Heydt. Purissima, another large vivid painting on view in the exhibition, recalls religious paintings, symmetrical upon first glance but revealing the many varieties of the natural world upon closer inspection. There are elements that reveal the passage of time, “memento mori”—a palm tightly furled and in full bloom, animals on full view and hidden behind greenery, Mount Vesuvius active in the background.

Throughout Stella’s works, including his botanicals, you can find a recurring “reference to Gothic architecture,” said Heydt, especially in works such as Flowers, Italy. While many of the birds and flowers in his works are recognizable, such as birds of paradise and sparrows, others are fantastical composites. Many pieces use “distinct layering techniques to achieve different textural effects,” Heydt noted.

The exhibition invites viewers to move not just in a direct line through the gallery, but to circle back and around again, new aspects of already seen paintings revealed by seeing what has come before and after. The silverpoints, comparatively simple, let the eye rest and see the organic lines of one flower that on other larger works are combined with hundreds of others. Stella enjoyed the challenge of working with silverpoint, an unforgiving medium where “once you make a wrong turn with the pen, there is no going back,” Heydt explained.

This is the first major exhibition of Stella’s work in decades, and his impact on modern art has mainly been overshadowed by his contemporaries and those that have come after. He is a sidenote in the outrageous stories of other, more flamboyant artists—for example, he accompanied Marcel Duchamp when he bought the object that, when signed, became the famous sculpture, Fountain. With this show, Stella is back in the spotlight, his grandiose works showcasing the range of American modernity.

Joseph Stella: Visionary Nature is on view at the Brandywine Museum of Art from June 17 through September 24. The exhibition is co-organized with the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Ga., and this is its final stop. The Brandywine Museum of Art is located at 1 Hoffman’s Mill Road, Chadds Ford, PA. More information can be found online at Brandywine.org/Museum.

About Victoria Rose

Victoria Rose (she/her) is an editor, writer, avid reader, self-described geek, and fan of all things creative. Her passion for words has led to her current career as a freelance editor, and she is the owner of Flickering Words, an editing service. When not wielding a red pen (or cursor), she loves reading books of all genres, playing video, board, and word games, baking ridiculous creations to show off on the internet, or enjoying the gorgeous outdoors. She is a board member of the West Chester Film Festival and part of the Thirsty Monsters, a team of streamers from around the world who fundraise for various charities supporting LGBTQIA+ and accessibility rights. She can be found online @WordsFlickering or the Brandywine Art Guide @BrandywineArtGuide.

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