Northern Kentucky University

Moby-Dick Posters, Prints, and Sculptures by Frank Stella, NKU students, and Other Artists

Earlier Images from Frank Stella’s Moby-Dick Series (1985-1989)

In the posters reproducing The Counterpane and The Quarter-Deck, we see two of the Wave prints with which Frank Stella began his Moby-Dick series. In the posters reproducing The Sphynx and The Tail, we see Stella beginning to use wave, whale, and lattice shapes from his Wave prints in large, painted metallic reliefs mounted to the wall. In Enter Ahab: to Him, Stubb and The Chase-Third Day, interrelations between the underlying metallic shapes and their painted overlay become more complex. (Two of Stella’s original Wave prints, The Hyena and The Whale as a Dish, are permanently installed in the lobby of the Greaves Concert Hall, whose entrance is visible through the window dividing this wall.)

1. The Counterpane (Wave 5)

1985-89

Frank Stella

Reproduced in exhibition poster: Frank Stella: The Waves

University Art Gallery, New Bedford, Massachusetts, 2002

©2011 Frank Stella

2. The Quarter-Deck (Wave 4)

1985-89

Frank Stella

Silkscreen, lithography, and linoleum block with hand-coloring, marbling, and collage

Reproduced in exhibition poster: Pictor Laureatus: In Honor of Frank Stella

Friedrich Schiller University and Galerie der Jenoptik, Jena, Germany, 1996

©2011 Frank Stella

3. The Sphynx (IRS-13, 1.875X)

1988

Frank Stella

Mixed media on etched magnesium and aluminum

Reproduced in exhibition poster: Frank Stella: 1958-1990

Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art, Sakura, Japan, 1991

©2011 Frank Stella

4. The Tail (B-9, 2X)

Frank Stella

Collograph and monotype, paper mounted on canvas

Collection of the Artist

©2011 Frank Stella

5. Enter Ahab: To Him, Stubb (IRS-2, 1.875X)

1988

Frank Stella

Mixed media on fabricated etched magnesium and aluminum

Reproduced in exhibition poster: Frank Stella

Galerie Jamileh Weber, Zurich, Switzerland, 1990

©2011 Frank Stella

6. The Chase-Third Day (IRS-15, 1.875X)

1989

Frank Stella

Mixed media on etched magnesium and aluminum

Reproduced as Masterpiece of the Month #4 (mislabeled as Second Day)

Teacher’s Edition, Scholastic Art, February 1994

©2011 Frank Stella

Later Images from Frank Stella’s Moby-Dick Series (1990-1993)

The posters of The Mast-Head and of Stubb and Flask Kill a Right Whale (Dome) show Stella making two radical departures in the middle of his series. He left The Mast-Head unpainted when he realized the beauty of the colors in the contrasting kinds of aluminum: fabricated, cast, poured, and honeycomb. He printed Stubb and Flask Kill a Right Whale on shaped paper that protrudes six inches into the viewer’s space. The colorful Deckle Edges prints near the end of the series are seen the Columbus Quincentenary print, The Affidavit, and The Pequod meets the Jeroboam. The last poster reproduces a detail from Hooloomooloo, a site-specific installation in Sakura, Japan, based on a chapter in Mardi, the novel that Melville published two years before Moby-Dick.

7. The Mast-Head (Q-9)

1990

Frank Stella

Mixed media on aluminum

Reproduced in exhibition poster: Frank Stella: 1958-1990

Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art, Sakura, Japan, 1990

©2011 Frank Stella

8. Stubb and Flask Kill a Right Whale (Dome)

1992

Frank Stella

20-color etching, aquatint, relief, engraving on white, shaped TGL handmade paper

Reproduced in exhibition poster: Frank Stella: Moby-Dick Series

Stadthaus / Ulmer Museum, Ulm, Germany, 1993-94

©2011 Frank Stella

9. “Dare, Dream, Discover,”
variation on design for The Battering Ram (Deckle Edges 3)

Frank Stella

4-color offset lithography

Poster for New York State Christopher Columbus Quincentenary Commission, 1492-1992

Albany, New York, October 12, 1992

©2011 Frank Stella

10. The Affidavit (Deckle Edges 5)

1993

Frank Stella

41-color lithograph, etching, aquatint, relief on white TGL paper with irregularly cut edges

Reproduced in poster for the Atlanta Opera, 1994 Season

Atlanta, Georgia, 1994

©2011 Frank Stella

11. The Pequod Meets the Jeroboam. Her Story (Deckle Edges 7)

1993

Frank Stella

58-color lithograph, etching, aquatint, relief, mezzotint on white TGL handmade paper

Reproduced in exhibition poster: Masters of Contemporary Art

Center for Contemporary Graphic Art, Sukagawa City, Japan, 1995

©2011 Frank Stella

12. Hooloomooloo,(detail)

1993

Frank Stella

Acrylic on canvas

Reproduced in exhibition poster: Frank Stella: Space in Progress

Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art, Sakura, Japan, 1994

©2011 Frank Stella

North Wall: Unpainted to the Last, Part 1

On the north wall are two posters from Unpainted to the Last, the 1995 book and exhibition by Elizabeth Schultz. The poster with Rockwell Kent’s vertical white whale is accompanied by Moby-Dick artworks created between 1996 and 2004 by NKU students Abby Schlachter, Carola Bell, Laura Bird Knight, and Kathleen Piercefield. The poster with Richard Ellis’s horizontal white whale is accompanied by Moby-Dick art created between 1997 and 2009 by Robert Del Tredici in Canada, A.C.Christodoulou in Greece, George Klauba in Illinois, and Jessica Slone at NKU.

13. Moby-Dick Rises

1930

Rockwell Kent

Ink drawing for Random House edition of Moby-Dick

Reproduced in exhibition poster:Unpainted to the Last: Moby-Dick and American Art

Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, Kansas, 1995

©2011 Rockwell Kent

14. Freedom

2002

Laura Bird Knight

Woodcut on paper

NKU course on Frederick Douglass and Herman Melville, 2002

©2011 Laura Bird Knight

15. Queequeg in her Coffin I

1996

Abby Schlachter

Plaster and gauze body cast, inscribed

NKU course on Moby-Dick and the Arts, 1996

©2011 Abby Schlachter

16. From the Headwaters of the Eternities

2004

Kathleen Piercefield

Etching and aquatint on paper

NKU course on Moby-Dick and the Arts, 2004

©2011 Kathleen Piercefield

17. White Whale

2002

Carola Bell

Monotype and hand-coloring on black paper

NKU course on Cross-Cultural Exploration, 2001

©2011 Carola Bell

North Wall: Unpainted to the Last, Part 2

18. preliminary sketches for the Moby-Dick Murals

1984

Richard Ellis

Acrylic on illustration board

Reproduced in book poster: “Unpainted to the Last”: Moby-Dick and Twentieth-Century American Art

Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 1995

©2011 Richard Ellis

19. Moby-Dick: Knights and Squires: A Draft

1997

A. C. Christodoulou

Pencil and colored crayons. Ed. 5 of 20

Christmas card for selected participants of First International Melville Conference in June 1997

Volos, Greece

©2011 A. C. Christodoulou

20. Fast Fish - Loose Fish

2009

Jessica Slone

Card stock and felt

NKU graduate class on Frederick Douglass and Herman Melville, 2009

©2011 Jessica Slone

21. The Funeral

2007

George Klauba

Photograph of painting on canvas

Part of Klauba’s Moby-Dick series, 2003-2009

©2011 George Klauba

22. The Kingdom of Cetology

1997

Robert Del Tredici

Screenprint adapted from pen-and-ink drawing, 1966

Montreal, Canada

©2011 Robert Del Tredici

The copyright for all the art shown in this web exhibit belongs to the artist who created each piece. No one may use these images in any way without the express consent of the artist. The W. Frank Steely Library has obtained written consent from all the artists represented in this exhibit.