artist
Born in New York City, Albert Stadler trained at both the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Florida. In the mid 1960s he was a leading figure in the rise of minimalist color painting where he worked in both hard-edge and color field abstractions. His first solo exhibition was held in 1962 and he was included in the landmark 1964 exhibition, Post-Painterly Abstraction curated by Clement Greenberg. Through the 1960s and 70s Stadler exhibited widely including solo and group exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Albright-Knox Gallery and the Corcoran Gallery.
Description
Stadler makes an important statement about his work expressing an importance for one’s eye to feel the freedom to roam around the canvas. Orbit 1970, painted he same year as NASA's Apollo 13 mission, achieves this with ethereal extraterrestrial element, emanating a glow that is quite singular and enhances the color fields.
One of the critics who pays tributes to this quality was Kermit Champa. In 1967, the then assistant professor of art history at Yale University writes that Stadler was achieving an ability to maintain individual color components while creating a final effect of visual unity. This is the result in Orbit where the painting has a cohesive feel of equality throughout, even though he makes color fields and shifts. It has been said that he bridge a gap between the intellectual, sensual, conceptual and spiritual.
provenance
Frank H. Porter, Cleveland to
Main Trust of F. H. Porter, Cleveland
Private Collection
Christies, New York 2009
Private Collection
Swann Galleries, New York, 2021